


The Literal, Exact Opposite of a Virgin Sacrifice

by blamethemusk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Castiel Whump (Supernatural), Crack, Dark Crack, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eventual Happy Ending, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Riding, Sickfic, Temporary Character Death, Top Dean Winchester, Witch Castiel (Supernatural), sex is surprisingly vanilla all things considered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24103363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blamethemusk/pseuds/blamethemusk
Summary: Castiel's Dark Lord needs a human sacrifice. Dean is the first schmuck to hit on Cas when he goes out to find someone to take home and murder in his basement.The altar, candles, and ceremonial dagger don't seem to clue Dean into the fact that he's not meant to be getting his dick wet tonight. No matter what Cas says, Dean is unshaken in his conviction that this is all some elaborate kinky roleplay, and won't stop begging Castiel to have sex with him.He's also very convincing.Cas makes some mistakes.Updates every Friday in May.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 38
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Look at you, trying to be romantic with all these candles."  
> "First of all, I'm about to sacrifice you."
> 
> This will be a four part story, which I'll try to be updating at least weekly.
> 
> Content warning: This is a crack fic, but it's also based on the concept of human sacrifice. While Dean is consenting, and Cas is trying to make Dean understand the situation, Dean is ultimately unaware of all the facts. Temporary MCD happens during sex.

“Are you sure you won’t need an extra set of hands?” Meg asked, picking an imaginary piece of lint off Castiel’s shirt. “He’s a big dude.”

Cas looked over to the bar’s front entrance, where his target, a tall, dark and handsome type with oil stains on his jeans and one of Meg’s magic roofie-lites in his system, was currently having a shoving match with a door prominently labelled “pull”.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Castiel admitted.

Meg followed his gaze to the man - Dean, Cas had recently learned was his name - and seemed to get his point. Dean could certainly have taken Castiel on in a fair fight, but he’d been a few drinks in by the time he approached Cas at the bar and sealed his fate. By now, he probably couldn’t figure his way out of a wet paper bag.

“I’ll be by tomorrow to help with cleanup,” Meg said, patting Cas’ shoulder, and disappeared into the bar’s Friday night crowd before he could even turn back around to watch her go. Cas sighed, shook off the nerves, and started towards the bar’s door.

“They won’t let us leave!” Dean complained, when Cas came up beside him. Cas grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, holding it for Dean. He was momentarily stunned with amazement, looking at Cas like he was some kind of witch.

Which, he was. Sort of.

And once a month, the coven’s rent came due. One human life, owed on the new moon, that would buy the blessing of Buer’s power for the entire coven.

As Cas drove his mark home, he thought idly about the fact that Dean was among the most attractive guys who’d ever fallen into that trap - including both his own catches and Meg’s. Almost made him wish this was any other Friday night. That he was ever outgoing enough, confident enough, lucky enough to get someone like this home for himself instead of for, y’know, the Dark Lord.

When they arrived back at Castiel’s home, Dean stumbled out of the passenger side door and fell down on the pavement, laughing like a madman until Cas came and helped him up. At the front door, Cas unlocked the deadbolt while Dean swayed dangerously on the steps, distracted and loopy. He was almost cute, like this - not the big swinging dick of a dude he’d been before Meg’s spell had kicked in. But alas, Cas had work to do.

“It’s nice,” Dean said absently as Cas led him into the house and towards the basement door. Cas opened it, revealing the stairs down. “Where’re we going?”

“Just come with me,” Cas said.

Dean donned a goofy grin. “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he slurred. Cas rolled his eyes and kept a hand on Dean’s arm in case he stumbled on the steps.

The unfinished basement had high ceilings with exposed beams, and the bare bulbs gave off a dirty yellow light. A few shelves at one end of the room, littered with the paraphernalia of Castiel’s faith, framed the centerpiece - a wide stone slab, raised a few feet off the ground, carved with incomprehensible runes, and stained faintly red. There were tarnished iron rings bolted into the surface at the corners.

They came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs as Dean gaped around him at the room, and for a moment Cas thought that it was a look of horror. The room was, after all, not subtle in decor. But Dean just laughed.

“This is so weird…” Dean mumbled, wandering over to the altar. “So cool. Do you like horror movies?”

“Sure,” Cas deadpanned, dispassionately playing along.

“You must love them,” Dean continued. “You must  _ make _ horror movies.”

Dean reached out towards the shelves, seemingly going to pick up a rare bird skull Cas just couldn’t bear to see shattered through a drunkard’s carelessness, and so he snapped his fingers. Dean went out like someone had flipped his switch, down like a sack of potatoes, and crumpled on the ground next to the altar. 

“Something like that,” Castiel muttered to himself, before he rolled up his sleeves and set to work.

He stripped off only Dean’s jacket before bodily dragging him onto the stone. He took out some rope from a chest on the bottom shelf, arranged Dean’s body, face up, with his wrists and ankles aligned to the iron rings, and bound him there. Then he set to work on the ritual’s less crude elements - ingredients in a casting bowl, preparatory prayers, lighting candles.

The last set of ingredients needed time to react with one another, and fully develop. He stirred the goop inside the bronze dish, then held open the unconscious man’s lips to pour a little in his mouth at a time until he’d inadvertently swallowed an ounce or two. Then, there was nothing left to do but to wait for the correct moment for the sacrifice. He turned over an hourglass on a shelf behind the altar, where he’d be able to keep an eye on it. Then he sat in a chair across the room, and he waited.

Dean woke up about twenty minutes in. He blinked, and coughed, and though he was still a little sleep-drunk at first, Castiel knew Meg’s little helpers burned out fast, unfortunately metabolizing any alcohol along with them - Dean would be sober soon, if he wasn’t already.

“Oof,” Dean mumbled to himself, not seeming to realize Cas was there. Castiel watched as he slowly realized what was going on, experimentally tugging at the rope around his wrists, confused but, surprisingly, not panicking. “Kinky…” he muttered.

“Kinky?” Cas asked.

Dean’s head shot up, as he finally noticed Cas, and he laughed. “Kinda took you for a closet case, or a virgin,” Dean said, as confidently as if their positions had been switched. “Didn’t think you’d be a freak. Lucky for you, I think I kinda like it.”

Realization washed over Castiel. Did he… did Dean think this was a  _ sex game?  _ Something roiled in Cas’ gut, a sick mix of one half of his mind going immediately to the gutter, and the other being very fundamentally not okay with that idea. He stood and approached the altar. He found himself looking upon Dean with a mix of disgust and pity.

“I assure you, I’m taking this very seriously,” he told Dean.

“So what am I, a virgin sacrifice?” Dean asked.

Cas felt his lip twitch as he suppressed a bitter laugh. “Hardly.”

“Aww, don’t be like that,” Dean said.

Castiel shook his head and wandered back towards his chair. “Y’know, I thought listening to them beg was bad, but the next half hour or so with you is definitely going to take the cake,” he mumbled. “Wish I could just kill you sooner.”

“Where’d the fun be in that, huh?” Dean asked. Cas looked at him, and when Dean could tell he had his attention, he awkwardly shimmied his hips and tipped back his head, exposing the line of his neck. Cas had to admit, he had charm. Under any other circumstances, he would be all over Dean by now.

But this wasn’t any other circumstance.

With a dull horror, Cas realized his libido wasn’t understanding the difference.

Cas sighed, feeling his face twist in distaste for his body’s instinctive reaction. “This is not what I wanted,” he grumbled, largely to himself.

“Then what do you want with me? Dean asked, with his unflinchingly playful tone.

Shaking himself, Cas approached again, whisking up a ceremonial dagger from a shelf as he passed it. He took a stern tone, as if this man could really get it through his thick skull that it wasn’t an act if Cas was just severe enough. And he had better - if Dean didn’t cut that shit out right then and there, Cas realized, he had a decent chance of making Cas consider something he’d regret. He brandished the blade at Dean with intent. “You’re going to die,” he said, holding direct eye contact, speaking plainly and evenly. “You shouldn’t be trying to get laid, you should be praying. Crying. Begging for your life.”

Dean almost seemed to consider for a moment, eyes focusing with rapt attention on the knife, and for half a second Cas had, against all odds, hope. But when Dean’s eyebrows raised and he opened his mouth as understanding washed over his face, it was amusement that flickered behind his eyes, not fear. There was a momentary smirk before Dean schooled his expression into one of demure concern, batting his eyelashes like a starlet in an old movie.

“Oh,  _ please,”  _ he implored. “Please let me go. I’ll let you do  _ whatever you want _ with me, just don’t hurt me!”

Castiel closed his eyes, and groaned.

“C’mon!” Dean begged. “Don’t I at least get a last wish?”

“What?”

“I just don’t wanna die a virgin!” Dean said, and Castiel was about ready to fucking  _ gag him. _

“Would it truly make you happy? Give you the death you want?” Cas asked.

“I would die doing what I love,” Dean said. “A creepy, hot, nerdy dude.”

That… was a surprisingly compelling argument, if Cas was being honest. 

Not that he was even  _ considering _ it, in spite of the fire Dean had so rudely lit in Cas’ belly with his ‘dumb victim’ act. What kind of fucked up sex criminal would that make him, fucking a guy and then immediately gutting him? He was a murderer, sure, but he had standards. 

But it wasn’t like he was trying to manipulate Dean. It wasn’t like he didn’t have Dean’s sober and wildly enthusiastic consent.

It wasn’t like Dean wasn’t attractive, or like Cas would be opposed, under ordinary circumstances. It wasn’t like Cas didn’t want to. Desperately.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but fine.”

Dean’s face lit up like the sky on the fourth of July.

While Dean’s current restriction of movement was going to be a bit of a struggle for their purposes, Cas figured he could make it work. He started by pushing the edges of Dean’s open flannel shirt out of the way, and then used the dagger to saw through the hem of his t-shirt.

“Aw,” Dean complained, as Cas grabbed the fabric either side of the tear and pulled. “I really liked that shirt.”

“Trust me, you won’t be needing it anymore,” Cas deadpanned. He needed the blade's help again when the tear reached the reinforced hem at Dean’s collar, and when he held the fabric up off his skin and slid the blade underneath, Dean tipped his head back in submission as if the proximity of the weapon that would shortly end his life to his throat was absolutely no cause for concern.

Moving next to Dean’s lower half, Castiel unbuckled his belt and unfastened his jeans. Dean tried to dig his heels into the stone to help lift his hips, offering only a little space while Cas dragged the waistband on his jeans and boxers down his legs. His ankles being bound a little beyond shoulder width apart, they wouldn’t go much further than mid-thigh, but it was enough to expose everything that mattered. 

“I need to go grab some stuff,” Cas said.

“What stuff?” Dean asked incredulously.

“Uh, a condom?” Cas answered. “Lubricant? I wasn’t planning on fucking anyone down here tonight - or ever, actually.”

“Ah,” Dean said, with a tone conveying a deep understanding he probably thought he had. He winked. “Right. Of course.”

Cas turned to go back upstairs and to his bedroom. He was halfway up the steps to the door when he heard Dean call out behind him, “I’ll be right here! Promise not to go anywhere.” Cas rolled his eyes, and exited onto the ground floor.

The candles having warmed the basement a few degrees, it was a sobering chill to emerge from below ground and shut the door behind him. It was as if as soon as Dean was out of sight, the whole thing didn’t feel real - not the weird sex thing, sure, but not the whole ritual, either. Like he’d emerged from being Castiel, mid-level black magic cog in the machine, and just become a guy, standing in a hallway, a little bit too tired and a little bit too aroused. 

Cas shook himself. This… this was insane. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t have said yes in the first place, and he needed to take back the promise and do his damn job.

Except, he thought, as he started up the second flight of stairs to the second floor, he’d made a promise. To a dying man. And as gross as fulfilling it made him feel, it would make him feel worse to humiliate Dean, make him squirm and beg (because he would beg until Castiel gave in - he was clearly a determined man) until he either realized what was going on or the time came to offer him to Buer. To die having just gotten laid because of pure stupidity was one thing, but to die unfulfilled and horny because of pure stupidity…

In his bedroom, Cas collected both items he’d come for from the top drawer of his dresser and laid them on its surface. He stepped into his bathroom, took a quick glance at himself in the mirror, and wasn’t entirely impressed with what he saw. He looked tired - always would, near the end of a sacrifice cycle, but that would change soon. He’d showered, combed his hair in anticipation of his and Meg’s little game of the month, whenever it was one of their turns, to dress up and go out and reel in the first fish that noticed either of them. But somehow he still felt sloppy, unkempt, like it was something eternally in him. What on Earth Dean had seen in him, he didn’t know - this was why Meg usually took the catch, not Cas.

Lucky for him, he thought, Dean had bad taste. And lucky for Dean, while this had been a ruse, Castiel was, at least, actually gay.

He didn’t have time to worry about ideal, by-the-book pre-bottoming practices, what with the hourglass still running down in the basement, not that he felt there’d be any issues. He thought maybe getting undressed upstairs would be less awkward and save him having to burn a perfectly good outfit if it were ruined with blood, so he stripped down and put on the bathrobe that hung on the back of his bathroom door. He even did the awkward work of opening his ass up alone in the bathroom, rather than having to listen to Dean make bad puns at him while he tried to do it downstairs. He chose not to take a last look in the mirror, because he kind of hated himself right at that moment.

He knew he should probably feel worse about the whole human sacrifice thing than about granting Dean’s last wish, but Castiel had his reasons for biting the bullet and doing horrible things for Buer. He’d long since justified to himself that the good he was able to do, the lives he was able to save with the power it granted him were worth the lives he had to take.

But he didn’t  _ have _ to do this. It felt worse, because if he was being honest with himself, it was something he  _ wanted. _

He returned to the basement with lube, a condom, and a couple of hand towels he intended to fold up to keep his knees off the hard altar stone.

“Took you long enough,” Dean bitched, as Cas came down the stairs.

“I’m doing you a favor,” Cas replied. “Don’t complain, we have time.”

Not much of it, admittedly, but enough.

Cas planted a folded up towel on either side of Dean’s hips. Dean craned his neck to watch what he was doing.

“What’s that for?”

“My knees,” Cas replied.

“Ooh,” Dean teased. “A power bottom. I like it.”

“I’m starting to think there isn’t much you  _ don’t  _ like,” Cas sighed.

“Correct.”

Without much ceremony, Castiel took hold of Dean’s dick and started stroking to bring him from half-hard to something he could work with. Dean immediately let out a half-groan, half-chuckle, like everything about sex was just so fucking amusing to him. Cas might have found it cute if Dean wasn’t being so willfully obtuse about his own situation.

Cas made arrangements of condom and lube in short order, shucked off his bathrobe to the predictable soundtrack of a half hearted wolf whistle from Dean, and climbed up on the altar with him. He threw one leg over Dean, straddling his abdomen and getting comfortable. Dean was looking up at him with hungry anticipation, excitement, like this was about to be the best day of his life and not the last. 

_ At least he’s happy,  _ Castiel thought.

He reached back between his own legs to get a grip on Dean’s cock and line himself up. He grunted softly at the first push of the head, straining his thighs to keep his descent slow and steady. Dean made a noise Cas could easily have mistaken for a contented sigh.

“C’mon,” Dean whispered, half to himself.

“Be patient,” Cas scolded.

“Is playing along with this Satanist stuff not being patient?” Dean asked. “I  _ wanted _ to blow you in the bathroom at the bar. I think I’ve been more than patient.”

Castiel sighed, and bearing down, let himself slide the rest of the way down to rest his hips against Dean’s. The fullness - and it had, admittedly, been a little while - was momentarily overwhelming in the best possible way. “It’s still not a game,” he grunted, though he knew by then that nothing was going to convince Dean.

“Well, then dying for this ass’ll be worth it,” Dean laughed breathlessly.

Something about that caught Cas off guard, and the pure joy Dean seemed to associate with sex wriggled into him, a little, too. He suppressed a smile, instantly felt guilty, and then reminded himself that Dean was better off dying laughing.

Cas rested his weight on one hand planted on Dean’s shoulder and started shifting his hips, working up some friction that clearly satisfied Dean as much as it did Cas himself. Castiel took his own dick in hand, gave himself some pressure to take the edge off as his ass adjusted and his body found the muscle memory. He leaned forward, one hand planted on Dean’s chest, to find some leverage and the grinding gave way to that glorious slide as Cas lifted himself up before slamming back down.

“Fuck!” Dean cursed.

This was the only thing Cas could give Dean, and he was going to give it everything he had. His thighs burned, and he rode Dean hard. Dean was beautiful, eyes fixed on Castiel, open mouthed as he bathed in the sensations and intensity of their fucking.

“I’ll fuck you so good you’ll forget you ever wanted to give me up,” Dean huffed, and somehow, limbs splayed and purchase against the stone hard to come by, he managed to thrust up, hard, meeting Cas as he pressed down. It made Cas’ breath catch in his throat, and he moaned quietly.

“How the hell did you even…” Cas mumbled. “Where are you getting the  _ leverage?” _

“I’m just that good, baby,” Dean replied with a smug smile, made all the more smug in appearance by his heaving breath and tousled hair. 

“Don’t call me that,” Cas huffed.

“What, too soon?”

Cas leaned forward, putting more weight on Dean’s chest and locking eyes with him. “Now is all you have, big shot,” he hissed. “Fucking make it count.”

Dean responded with a series of impossibly competent thrusts, and Cas bore down to recieve them, riding Dean harder and more desperately than he’d ever done before. They found their rhythm, pushing and pulling and  _ grinding  _ until everything else fell away and Castiel was consumed with the drive and the need of Dean’s body. 

Castiel opened his eyes, unsure when he’d lost himself and closed them, and they fell on the shelf nearby the altar, where the hourglass rested.

It had finished its countdown, all the sand having poured into the bottom bulb, and Castiel was out of time. Castiel was out of time and absolutely  _ fucked.  _ In more ways than he’d have liked to be.

“Oh, no no no no no,” Cas muttered to himself. He abruptly stilled his hips, and when Dean caught on to the interruption he whined at the loss of friction and bucked up. Distracted and off balance, Cas was nearly sent tumbling to the floor by Dean’s desperate flailing. “Fuck. Dammit, shit  _ fuck!” _

The dagger was in arm’s reach, on the shelf by the hourglass, and Cas had no idea how long he’d been going overtime on the spellwork, but all he could do was hurry. His hand found the hilt, and wasting no time at all, he reared up and drove the blade between Dean’s ribs.

The look on the other man’s face wasn’t even pained. Wasn’t even shocked. He just looked down at the blade, confused in a sad, simple little way. “Ah,” was all he said, a quiet noise of pain, and then Castiel pulled the blade back out of his chest. He gurgled, a little, a sound Cas hated to hear. He dropped the dagger to the floor beside the altar and placed his hands on Dean’s cheeks, gentle and soothing. The fresh wound on Dean’s chest oozed copious amounts of blood, pouring over his sides onto the stone beneath him.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel whispered. He stroked Dean’s face and neck like he was comforting a spooked colt. “It’s done, now. You don’t have to fight it. It’s okay.”

Dean’s eyes were finally pulled from his own chest and found Castiel’s gaze. Betrayal. Castiel had seen many reactions from men and women in Dean’s place - that one was new to him. It flickered, however, only briefly before the light behind those piercing green eyes faded, and the blood flow slowed, and Dean was still.

And there Cas was, sitting on a dead guy’s dick, suddenly disgusted at the line he’d crossed.

The squelch of getting  _ off _ that dick, so he could climb down, felt like something more unholy than he’d been meaning to commit. He hopped off the altar, careful not to step on the discarded knife, and wondered idly if he should get dressed before cleaning up the scene. He was mildly irritated at himself for not considering the short time they would have - neither of then had actually managed to orgasm, and now that Dean was dead it would be significantly outside of Castiel’s (admittedly lax) code of ethics to prioritize dealing with his unsatisfied erection.

It was kind of the worst thing he’d ever done, he was pretty sure.

Cas sighed, and determined that doing the bloodiest of the clean up now meant he could roll a blood-washing shower and a jerk-off shower into one. As such, once the dagger was up off the floor and out of harm’s way, Cas set about untying Dean’s wrists and ankles then sought out the blanket he’d been hoping to wrap the body in until Meg came to help dispose of it the next day.

He had his back turned to the altar when he heard a heaving gasp.

Castiel spun on his heel, alarmed as all hell, and sure enough the dead man was sitting up on the stone altar, painted with blood but with his hand over his heart, fingertips brushing the place where the gaping wound was no longer. He gasped for breath, coughing, with wide eyes and more life in him than he’d had when he entered the room, much less when Cas had turned around.

“Dean?” Castiel asked in a panic.

Dean shook his head and blinked. “Whew!” He exclaimed. “What was that?”

Castiel honestly didn’t know how to answer that question.

“Trick knife? Corn syrup movie blood?” Dean asked. He laughed. “Dude, you had me for a minute, there. I was really scared, I think I blacked out for a minute - well, must have, since you untied me.”

“You’re alive,” Cas said. “You’re… here. You’re alive.”

“Oh!” Dean seemed to think he’d realized part of the game, again. “Honestly, not really into playing actually dead for this sorta thing. Wanna try something else?”

“Something… like what? What are we talking about?”

Dean hopped down, too, hiking up the waist of his jeans enough that he could actually walk, and treading unbothered through a pool of his own blood towards Castiel. “I don’t know, you wanna turn the tables?” He asked with a dazzling smile. “Maybe this poor, defenseless victim wiggled free and got the better of you, Mr. Cultist.”

Cas blinked at him. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. “I…” he began, then stopped. His mind was blank. “Mr. Cultist?”

Dean took Cas by the arm and pulled him back toward the altar. Gently and slowly, like they were just doing some kind of vaguely violent dance, Dean flipped their places and, still gripping Cas’ shoulders, pressed Cas’ belly against the edge of the altar stone. Castiel, still utterly perplexed as to what was happening, provided no resistance.

“You think you’re gonna take advantage of me?” Dean asked, returning to the voice of whatever character he thought he’d been playing. He moved one hand to Cas’ hip and pressed on his shoulder, forcing him to bend at the waist and lean his elbows on the altar. “Let’s see how you like being the one trapped between a cock and a hard place.”

Castiel had only a moment to contemplate how abysmal Dean’s joke was before Dean was sliding home, filling him up again. It shook him out of his numb astonishment. His brain was torn violently in two very different directions - first, the rerun of the previous few minutes in his head, trying to figure out if he’d really stabbed Dean in the heart or just imagined it, and second, the  _ oh fuck yes _ all consuming desire of Dean’s body blanketing his, pressing him down against the stone, filling him up and driving into him with wild abandon. 

The hard thrusts pressed Cas violently into the altar stone, coating his forearms in Dean’s spilled blood and trapping his dick against his belly. In short order, the sexed up part of his brain wrestled the panicked part into submission, and the sensation of a body draped over him, of getting fucked so goddamn well, had Cas driving back to meet Dean. It was better, even, than when Dean had been bound - unexpected because that had already been among the best sex of Cas’ life, and totally expected considering if that was what Dean could do with no control, this was always going to be phenomenal.

When Dean’s thrusts went out of synch with Cas’ reciprocation, his arm snaked around Cas’ chest and hauled him up just enough to get a hand on his cock. Still inside him, still thrusting, Dean jacked him off, hard and fast, panting in his ear.

“Oh God,” Cas breathed, unable to stop himself. “Dean, please.”

“Violent criminal like you, do you really think you deserve it?” Dean asked, hot against Cas’ ear.

“I know you’re gonna give it to me anyway,” Cas replied.

Dean laughed, breathlessly, kissed Cas’ neck, and Castiel came all over the altar. Dean followed suit not long after.

Dean pulled out, and Castiel tried to enjoy the moment of post-orgasm bliss while the rational side of his brain booted back up. He realized he was still staring blankly at the stone he was leaning against, slick with blood. It was mixed with thick white, now. Gross. Probably an ingredient for another ritual, but gross. 

And his nice white hand towels were clearly unsalvageable, which was a bit of a disappointment. 

Luckily, Cas found himself too exhausted to really care.

Cas and Dean ended up sitting, naked and mostly naked, respectively, side by side on the altar. Dean didn’t seem to know how to proceed any more than Cas did. 

“Should we shower?” Castiel asked, numbly.

“Probably,” Dean said with a chuckle. He held out his arms, showing off the quickly drying red stains all over them both, the ones Dean probably still thought were corn syrup and food colouring.

“You can… I’ll show you where it is,” Cas said. “You can go first, I’ll clean up down here.”

“Or,” Dean said, wrapping an arm around Cas. “We can both go first and clean up tomorrow?”

Cas nodded. 

He should probably have been doing something about this, but having no idea what, he figured that a shower and a good night’s sleep sounded nice. Certainly it sounded a lot nicer than actually dealing with the fallout of whatever the fuck he’d just done.

Later, clean and warm and cuddling with a man he’d attempted to murder two hours previous, Castiel dozed off to a dreamless sleep. Dean, blissfully unaware of his situation, slept equally peacefully.

There would be consequences, of course. But those could wait until morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These sorts of things didn't usually have a morning after.

Cas woke in the morning to the smell of coffee and someone shaking him, gently. It was a soft awakening, but the kind in which one’s whole body still aches with exhaustion, making them wonder if they slept at all, and as a direct result, he instantly harboured a violent hatred towards whomever the fuck was waking up him so goddamn early.

“Cas? Caaaaas...” Dean sing-songed, and Castiel had a few moments of blissful morning amnesia before he remembered that he’d brought a guy home the night before for business, not pleasure. 

He forced one eye open, lids heavy like lead. “Mm?” He hummed.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dean said. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed - partially in Castiel’s own clothes, he couldn’t help but notice, since most of Dean’s own outfit was past saving after the night before - and smiling like it wasn’t the ass crack of dawn. He offered Cas one of his own chipped mugs, warm and full of coffee, and in spite of himself Cas was grateful.

“You’re up already?” Castiel asked, body protesting as he pulled himself into a sitting position.

Dean laughed. “Dude, it’s almost two,” he said. “Your friend just got here. I let her in, told her I’d come get you.”

His… friend… 

“Meg?” Cas asked.

“Yeah,” Dean replied.

“Meg is…” The fog started to clear from Castiel’s sleepy brain, and was replaced with cold panic. “Meg!” He shouted, sitting bolt upright in bed and threatening to spill hot coffee all over the blanket, not to mention his own bare groin. “She wasn’t supposed to come until this afternoon--”

“It is the afternoon!” Dean said. “I told you.”

“Did she see you?” Cas asked urgently.

Dean took the mug from Cas’ hands and moved it to the nightstand before he could hurt himself with it. “Sweetheart--” he began.

“Don’t,” Cas said, fixing him with a stern look. “This is bad.” 

Dean raised his hands in mock surrender. “She seems nice,” he said. “I didn’t tell her we had sex, if being outed is what you’re worried about.”

Hurrying to get up and find something to wear, Cas couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s not the least of it,” he mumbled, dragging a pair of sweatpants from the laundry bin. “Fuck me. I’m dead. I’m so very, very dead.” 

Dean nodded along, sagely, as if he absolutely understood, which he absolutely did not.

Dean had clearly made coffee for all three of them - and wasn’t that just so goddamn nice of him? Meg sat sipping hers at Castiel’s kitchen table when he entered, and she smiled in a way that set off Cas’ fight-or-flight response. He sat down across from her anyway.

“Morning, Meg,” Cas said.

“Morning, Cas,” she replied. “Did you sleep well?”

She said it in a way that Cas alone knew meant “I hope you enjoyed that dick, because you’re probably gonna die for it.”

“Yes,” he said. “Overslept, evidently.”

“I met your, uh, ‘friend’ here,” she said, with literal finger quotes. “Gotta say, Dean, when you and Cassie left the bar together last night I really didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Cas kicked her under the table. Without so much as a flinch, she kicked back.

Dean had already found Cas’ frying pan and was raiding his fridge for omlette ingredients, apparently blind to the jar of lamb’s blood in front of the sour cream, because fuck Cas’ life,  _ of course _ Dean was making him  _ fucking breakfast.  _ “You just don’t know me, yet,” he said. “I’m not a sneak-out-before-sunrise kinda guy. Not that I’m a boiled rabbit kinda guy either,” Dean added, turning to address Castiel. “Like, say the word, I’m out, but meanwhile I have  _ manners.” _

“And nowhere more fun to be on a Saturday morning,” Meg said.

“Not that watching Cas sleep all day has been much fun,” Dean said. “Guess I really wore him out last night.”

He shot Cas a wink. Cas forced an uncomfortable, lopsided smile and sank down in his chair. He contemplated the possibility there might be a spell available to command the earth to literally swallow him whole.

Meg snorted. “Do we have a few minutes before you’re done with that, Dean?” She asked. “Can I steal Cas away for a sec? We have some business we need to go over for our, uh, Bible study group.”

Dean barely looked up from the bowl of eggs he was beating, but he laughed. “You go to Bible study?”

Cas glared at Meg. “Close enough,” he said, and Dean shrugged.

“Fine by me,” he said, but as Cas followed Meg into the hallway he heard Dean laughing to himself under his breath, “damn, you must have issues.”

Meg power walked directly to the basement door and down the stairs. Humbled as he was, Cas followed, closing the door behind him. His bare feet had barely met the cold concrete floor before Meg turned on him, giving Cas such a start that he almost fell back against the stairs.

“What the  _ fuck?”  _ She hissed.

“I swear, I don’t know,” Cas said, holding his arms out in self defense.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Meg asked. “Killing him was the easy part of the ritual, so if he’s still sucking air, it’s because  _ you _ would rather have him as a boytoy than a spiritual battery.”

“I killed him,” Cas argued.

Meg’s mouth fell open in an offended kind of shock. She shook her head, and pointed up the stairs. “He’s looking pretty fucking fresh for a corpse!”

“I stabbed him, he died, and then he just wasn’t dead anymore,” Cas explained.

He gestured, in a broad motion, towards the altar at one end of the room, and Meg took the hint and turned. She could see, as well as he could, the dark, sticky puddles and rivulets that coated the stone and dripped down its sides. The two sets of footprints trailing across the floor.

“You stabbed him and he’s still willing to make you breakfast?” She asked, with a genuine tone of curiosity.

“He’s… Meg, I say this with some modicrum of love, but this man is  _ very stupid _ ,” he said. “He thought… he thought we were roleplaying. Even after he died he just thought it was theatrics and that he’d momentarily blacked out from the sex, or the fear--”

“The sex,” Meg repeated.

“Yes.”

“You… you fucked him _before_ you decided not to kill him?” Meg asked.

“Oh, come on!” Cas said, half in a whine. “Haven’t you? Men love you. Surely if I, taking home the target once in a blue moon, got one who wasn’t exactly turned off by this whole… _this..._ then surely you’ve had more than a few.”

“Sure, but I’m not a toddler, Cas, I don’t play with my food!” She spat. “And I sure as hell don’t play with our demon daddy’s food!”

Cas sat down on the bottom step. “Please don’t call him that,” he sighed.

Meg, while clearly shaken, just shook her head and crossed her arms. “Shouldn’t matter, didn’t need a virgin, anyway…”

“I fucked him _during,_ okay?” Cas said. “It’s my fault the ritual didn’t work. He _really_ wanted to have sex, and I didn’t know what to do, so I… had… sex with him… and then I lost track of time and it was past time to spill the blood, and I didn’t have time to… to _stop_ having sex with him.”

“You… you killed him during sex,” Meg deadpanned.

Cas considered arguing the point, but she had him on a technicality. “Yes.”

“You sick son of a bitch.”

“I know!” Cas moaned, letting his head fall back against the edge of step.

“Well, lucky for you, even if the death was temporary, it felt like the Dark Lord took it,” she said.

“Really?” Cas asked.

“What, you didn’t feel it? The whole coven’s usual charge-up?” Meg asked.

“No,” Castiel admitted. “I’m… I’m exhausted. I must have slept twelve hours last night, and I still feel weak.”

Meg shrugged. “Maybe it’s just you getting rejected, then,” she thought aloud. “But then why’s he alive in the first place? I’m gonna have to look into this. It might not be too bad, but it can’t be  _ good.” _

“I know.”

Meg finally seemed to notice Cas again, and she fixed him with a stern look. “In the meantime, don’t lose him,” she said.

Cas blinked up at her. “What?”

“If you broke something, and we need him to fix it, and you lose him, you’re fucked,” she said. “Frankly, if the elders find out about this we’re  _ all _ fucked, but one step at a time.”

“I can’t just chain him up in my house, Meg, I’m not a psychopath.”

“You murdered him,” Meg said, enunciating each syllable clearly for emphasis. “While fucking him.”

“By accident!” Cas exclaimed.

Meg waved her hand out in front of her, as if banishing this conversation. “I don’t care how you keep him, just keep him,” she said. “He’s clearly a himbo. He should be easy to manipulate.”

“A… a what?”

“Just keep his dick wet, don’t let him leave this house without giving you his phone number and home address, and don’t scare him off,” Meg concluded.

Don’t scare off the guy who got stabbed through the heart and laughed it off. Got it. May as well have asked him to do simple addition. Solve a four piece jigsaw puzzle. Boil water.

Not that he minded having more time to spend with Dean, Cas realized.

Quickly followed by the realization that that was definitely not the right way to be thinking about this.

By the time Meg had left, and Cas had eaten and reset, cleaning the basement while Dean borrowed a phone charger and called his brother, Castiel had calmed down enough to process the reality of the situation. The fresh air, when he took the trash bag of blood soaked towels out to the bins, shook him from his daze and the fog of exhaustion, and he realized that Meg had been exactly right on how the hell they ought to proceed.

He’d fucked up the sacrifice by, well, fucking the sacrifice. But the offering had been accepted, according to Meg - though Castiel felt, if anything, more drained than before the ritual. No one but the three of them knew what had happened the night before, and only he and Meg understood it. Meg would start the research on her end, and all Cas had to do was the very important job of staying close to Dean and keeping an eye on him.

Making that even easier was the fact that Dean clearly wasn’t eager to leave. He’d been helpful, and kind, and respectful all day, and clearly saw this as having the potential to be more than a one night thing. All Cas would have to do was play along.

So as the day rolled on into late afternoon, and Dean was still, inexplicably, in Castiel’s house, Cas sat him down on the sofa and sat right down next to him.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t expecting you to stay today, or be so helpful,” Cas said, opening up the conversation. “I really appreciate it, though, so I wanted to say thank you.”

Dean shrugged. “It’s no problem. I’m a house guest - kinda. Making you breakfast is literally the absolute least I could do,” he said. “Besides, I owe you one for last night.”

“You really don’t,” Castiel said, overwhelmed with discomfort.

“You showed me a good time!” Dean insisted. “I wasn’t expecting that sort of dedication or creativity, it was something special. Mind you, you might wanna warn a guy before he goes home with you, not everyone is as down with kinky shit as I am.”

Castiel buried his face in his hands, and once again considered the whole ‘commanding the earth to swallow him whole’ thing.

“Hey,” Dean said, softly. Cas felt a hand wrap around his wrist and gently pull his hands away from his face. “I’m just teasing you, man. Kinks are nothing to be ashamed of. Let your freak flag fly!”

“Sure…” Cas muttered.

“Is it because of your church thing?” Dean asked.

Cas looked up at him, confused. 

“You have house visits from your bible study friends but you’re so into satanic roleplay you have an impressive custom play room in your basement for it?” Dean asked. “I figure, maybe some wires got crossed in there somewhere? Or at least you’ve got some guilt built up? Not that I’m judging.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Cas said. 

“It’s okay, man, I get it. Growing up, sometimes the Bible is the dirtiest book in the house. Maybe Abraham and Issac just awakened something dark in there,” Dean said with a teasing smile.

Castiel scoffed, rushing to his own defense. “Abraham was Issac’s  _ father,  _ first of all,” he said. “And nobody fucked anybody in that story.”

“And I’m just teasing,” Dean reiterated. He gave Cas a comforting little kiss on the cheek, and Cas felt himself flush, just a little. “Was that okay?” Dean asked. Castiel nodded.

“Can we just not talk about… the whole thing that happened last night?” Cas asked. “Just for a while? Usually these one night stands don’t exactly have a morning after, for me,” Cas admitted.

Dean nodded along. Looking into his eyes, Cas could tell he  _ cared,  _ against all odds, and that made something twist funny in his gut. He couldn’t quite tell if he was feeling guilty for decieving Dean or feeling butterflies because, in spite of that, Dean seemed to actually be seeing him. Or at least, he was trying to.

“But you’re really sweet,” Cas said. He realized as he said it how very much he meant it.

Dean smiled faintly, and ducked his head. He might have been blushing, just a touch. “Um, thanks, Cas,” he said. “You’re… you’re really cool. No, that sounds lame in comparison--” Dean cut himself off, and sighed. “I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, so far. I admire how forward you are, and I think it’s kinda sad but kinda cute that you’re insecure now someone wants to keep spending time with you. You deserve to be appreciated. I totally wouldn’t mind if you wanted to do it again sometime.”

Dean’s words, his sentiment, wedged somewhere between Cas’ ribs and his heart, and he felt it, warm and glowing. And God, was he so weak that that was how he reacted to the idea of a second date?

Not that they’d had a first date. Not that Dean realized that it hadn’t been a first date. Were you supposed to call semi-anonymous fetish roleplay hookups dates? 

“Do you have anywhere you need to be tonight?” Cas asked.

Dean smiled. He was excited, like a little kid, and it was adorable. “No.”

“You wanna order a pizza?” Cas asked. “Watch a movie?”

“That sounds awesome,” Dean said.

And so they did.

Dean was lying against Castiel as they both watched the screen, on his belly with his head pillowed on Cas’ chest, arms wrapped partially and awkwardly around him like Cas was a big teddy bear. The movie was fine, really. Not painful to watch. But a bit slow, and as Castiel’s mind began to wander he realized that Dean’s mind must have been wandering, too. 

Dean inched up Cas’ body, subtly, almost sneakily, and Cas felt little wet kisses being pressed to his neck and the underside of his jaw. Cas hummed at the sensation, and ran the fingers of one hand absently through Dean’s short hair.

“Bored?” He asked.

“Hm,” Dean hummed against Cas’ skin. “The movie isn't quite as interesting as you are.”

“Why do I feel that’s damning with faint praise?” Cas asked, smirking.

But it was the challenge that Dean clearly needed, as he pushed himself up off his big body pillow of a Netflix and Chill partner and moved his mouth from Cas’ throat to Cas’ lips. He was on him so fast, and dedicated to it so completely from the get go, that it took Castiel a second to catch up. Dean, it turned out, kissed like his life fucking depended on it, a little joy Cas had been denied their first night together by the somewhat more violent circumstances. It was deep and all consuming, and Cas found he absolutely loved it.

“You wanna try something vanilla, this time?” Cas asked between kisses.

Dean laughed, but agreed. “Yeah, please,” he said. “Wanna take this upstairs?”

“Actually,” Cas said, a little self conscious but willing to ask. “Could I blow you? Here?”

Dean paused, looking down at Cas with confusion. “If you want to?” He said, a statement coming across as a question. “I figured it was your turn to be the one who’s dick was the center of attention. But if you’re more of a bottom…”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Cas said, shrugging. “I just… I want to.”

The small shade of discomfort faded from Dean’s face and Cas saw the over enthusiastic dork take back over. 

“I’m sure not gonna say no,” Dean said, and kissed Cas once more before sitting up.

They quickly rearranged themselves. Dean, who was still wearing the jeans he had arrived in the night before, shucked them off and sat back down. He edged his ass towards the end of the cushion, back curving as he sunk into the shape of the sofa. Castiel stepped between Dean’s spread knees and knelt, rather gracelessly, in front of him. The TV droned on in the background, casting flickering lights across Dean’s face as Cas looked up at him, hands finding a tentative resting place on Dean’s thighs, pressing them apart. Dean, meanwhile, gazed back, eyes full of hopeful anticipation.

Cas took Dean in hand, already hard for him, and broke eye contact to focus on the task in front of him. Squeezing just enough to give Dean his hand to rut against, Cas pressed his lips to the head and sucked a few wet kisses there. He was rewarded with soft, unhurried noises from above and the light touch of Dean’s fingertips against his hair, as if Dean wanted to grab on but was holding back. He transitioned to licking, stroking the shaft all the while, before sucking the head into his mouth. 

“Oh,” Dean moaned, losing that hesitation and threading his fingers through Castiel’s hair. “Oh,  _ fuck.” _

The approval, the breaking down of that little barrier, filled Castiel with a warm sensation, and renewed his vigour. He pushed himself, taking Dean in while massaging the underside with his tongue. 

It was… a fantastic dick. Truly. Better up close and personal like this than when Cas was only acquainting it with his hands, or his ass. Not uncomfortably large, but satisfying. Nicely curved. Soft skin.

“Can I put my foot on your coffee table?” Dean asked through laboured breaths, interrupting Cas’ train of thought.

Cas pulled off to look up at Dean, keeping his cock warm in hand. “You have to ask?”

Dean sputtered and blushed, a deeper shade of pink than the sex-hot flush that had already crept up his chest and neck. “I… I’m not an animal,” he said weakly.

A smirk tugged at Cas’ lips. “Yes, you can,” he said.

Dean propped one bare foot up on the edge, as he’d requested. Cas maneuvered around until Dean’s thigh was propped up on his shoulder, and returned his mouth to its goal, holding onto Dean’s leg with one hand and laying the other on the crease of his opposite thigh. The root of Dean’s cock framed between Cas’ thumb and forefinger, Castiel pressed down, taking more and more into his mouth. Dean’s fingers tightened, just a fraction, in Cas’ hair when Cas swallowed around him.

“Fuck, you’re good at this,” Dean huffed.

Cas ran the pad of his thumb around the base and hummed in appreciation of the compliment, making Dean jerk his hips. Cas gagged, but powered through.

When Dean came, a tightening of his grip and a sharp gasp the only warning, Castiel stayed put, stuck it out, and swallowed everything Dean gave him. He sucked, still, as he pulled off Dean’s cock, leaving the head at last with a pornographically loud, wet sound.

“Holy shit,” Dean breathed.

“Mm,” Cas hummed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hardly.”

“No, actually. That was…”

Cas got to his feet and crawled across Dean’s left leg to plop himself back down on the sofa. “My pleasure,” he said.

No sooner had Cas sat back down on the sofa beside Dean than Dean was crawling into his lap, straddling his legs, and cradling his jaw with both hands as he kissed him fiercely. He showed his thanks in the intensity of his mouth, diving in like his own taste was something he needed to consume and cherish. Dean quickly moved to one-handedly untie the drawstring of Cas’ pajama pants, and slid his hand inside. He dragged out Castiel’s hard cock.

Cas gasped as he found a moment of respite from Dean’s kisses to speak. “You don’t have to,” he panted.

“Do you not want me to?” Dean asked, stilling his movements.

“No, I do,” Cas said quickly. “It’s just… I don’t want you to… to feel…”

To feel obligated? To feel like Cas was actually attracted to him? Did the circumstances make that some kind of moral failing? Hell, did they even make it untrue? If nothing else, the enthusiasm Cas had just put into sucking Dean off and the erection in Dean’s hand was proof enough that Cas  _ wanted _ him to. Even if, on every other level, he was lying. Even if he was using Dean.

But Dean just smiled and pressed a softer kiss to the corner of Cas’ mouth. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I literally just came,” he said. “Which, thanks, by the way.”

“You’re welcome…” Cas mumbled, unsure how else to respond. “Wait, sorry, what? What am I getting ahead of?”

“I’m not gonna make you top, so relax.”

Cas pulled away the few inches he needed to give Dean a genuinely offended look. “First of all, that was  _ not  _ what I was thinking,” he said. “And second of all, I’m vers.”

Dean chuckled. The bastard. 

“The least I can do is jack you off,” Dean said. He returned to slowly tugging on Cas’ cock in long strokes.

Cas sighed contentedly, his resistance faltering. Fuck it. “Yeah... “ He breathed. “Yeah, that’s good.”

Dean’s mouth covered Castiel’s again in short order. The slow pull of Dean’s hand and the soft sucking on lips and tongues melded together into this seamless warm, wet,  _ fuck yes _ good feeling that radiated through Castiel’s body. He forgot his concerns and took hold of Dean, wrapping his arms around his neck.

It was over pretty quickly, Cas coming all over Dean’s hand and soiling both of their t-shirts. Dean’s kisses went gentle as he stroked him through it, helped him come back down with a soft touch. Feeling fuzzy, Cas sat slumped against the cushions, soaking up the attention. He didn’t like to exaggerate, but that orgasm had felt like a punch to the gut. Enjoyable, fuck yes, but his whole body left drained and weary.

Dean rolled back onto his butt, sitting beside Cas once again, and dragged him down into a cuddle. Both horizontal once more, and Dean as warm as a furnace, Cas was out like a light before he’d even realized the movie was still playing.

“I have to head out this afternoon, I have a shift tonight,” Dean said, over pancakes he’d made from a mix Cas hadn’t even known he had in the kitchen. Once again, he had been up before Castiel and been exceedingly helpful all morning. And once again, Cas struggled to get out of bed, but to his credit, he was at least up before noon so they could enjoy breakfast together.

“On a Sunday night?” Cas asked. “What do you do?”

“Firefighter,” Dean said, around a mouthful of pancake. “Hours can be weird.”

Cas nodded. “Same,” he said. “I mean, kind of. I’m a nurse.”

“Alright!” Dean laughed, grinning ear to ear. He raised his hand for a high five that Cas returned, awkwardly. “Team Life Savers.”

They went back to their food for a minute, eating silently, before Dean spoke again, his voice a little unsure.

“Is it weird that we’ve had sex three times and we didn’t know that about each other?” He asked.

“Two,” Castiel corrected.

“I’m counting the cult roleplay and the shower sex separately,” Dean explained.

“Oh,” Cas said. “Well, no. I don’t think it’s weird. At least not  _ that _ weird. Is it?”

“I don’t think so…” Dean mused, but he seemed unconvinced.

Cas watched him, carefully. “What is it?” He asked.

Dean hummed, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to voice whatever thought was rattling around in his brain. “Like, is it weird for this to be impersonal?” He asked. “Because when we said ‘let’s do it again, sometime,’ if we meant ‘hooking up’ then maybe it’s not weird. But if we meant ‘let’s go out a few times and see where this goes…’”

“Which did you mean?” Cas asked.

“I don’t know, what did you mean?” Dean asked in return.

Cas had to fight back a small, pitiful kind of smile. “Dean,” he said.

“Do you even date?”

“Yes,” Cas said.

“Men?” Dean continued. “Openly?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to date me?” Cas asked.

Dean shrugged. “Only if you want to,” he said. “You don’t, like, have to.”

“And you thought I was insecure,” Cas said.

Dean crossed his arms in a huff. “Okay, well, you’re not answering the question, either.”

Leaning across the table, avoiding dragging his sleeve through a mislaid dollop of syrup, Cas reached his hand out for Dean’s. Dean observed it momentarily, before begrudgingly unwinding his arms and taking it.

“I want to date you,” Castiel said. No questions, no waffling. “I’d like to get to know you better, and I’d love it if you’d stick around.”

Dean smiled, but seemed to be trying to hide it. Just a little. “Okay, then,” he said. “You’re on.”

When Dean left, Cas kissed him goodbye at the front door like this was something, anything real. He watched him get into his cab home, and Dean waved as it pulled away, and Cas waved back. It was fake, probably, on Cas’ part at least. It was nice, anyway. 

Still exhausted, Castiel spent the rest of the day in bed.

He should have called out sick.

Returning to work at the hospital on Monday was trying - even more so than usual. The day started with no energy, Castiel having to absolutely drag himself out of bed and into his scrubs, and only went downhill from there. He spilled coffee on himself at his pre-shift meeting. He nearly gave the wrong patient someone else’s meds at least twice before he realized he had to triple check the chart instead of relying on his memory of the first two times he checked it. He fell asleep on his lunch break and the head nurse almost had his balls when he didn’t get back to the ward for a full 20 minutes after he was supposed to have been back on the clock.

More ominous, however, was the teenage girl with brain trauma from multiple untreated concussions playing hockey. She’d come in over the weekend, and was on a ventilator with 50/50 odds of waking. A perfect candidate for Castiel’s extra special treatment - it wouldn’t be a literal miracle to give her that nudge, heal just enough that she could be treated and saved by conventional means. Nobody would have reason to suspect anything odd was going on, and on top of that, it simply wasn’t her time to go. She deserved a second chance, and Cas could give it to her.

He managed. She woke, thank God. Well, thank Buer. But if she hadn’t been so distracted by the sudden awareness of a tube down her throat, hadn’t been trapped laying down on the hospital bed by it, she might have noticed that her nurse had been knocked back into the wall and out cold by some unseen force at the exact same moment as she opened her eyes. Cas came to a minute later, watching blearily as two of his colleagues extubated the girl before she could get hurt trying to do it herself, and another hovered over him, asking what happened. He felt like he was going to vomit.

He healed her, thank God. But it nearly killed him.

Castiel told them that the girl woke suddenly, startling him into jumping back where he hit his head on the wall. He was sent to go sit down, to take better care of a potential concussion than that poor girl’s coach had. Later, her mother hugged him, weeping with joy, and he felt himself leaning on her, instead. Even if he was concussed, he concluded, it was worth it.

Hannah, from oncology, bullied him into taking five minutes with an off-duty ER doc. He found nothing physically wrong with Cas, but suggested some tests. Cas refused.

He knew what was wrong with him, and doctors couldn’t help. It was simple, and obvious; Buer had left the building.

Laying in bed that night, Cas was awoken by the ding of his text message notification. He shifted through the blankets until he found his phone, and squinted as the screen lit up and made his head hurt, a little, just behind his eyes.

_ U up? lol  _ Dean had messaged.

_ I am now.  _ Cas replied.

_ In bed already? Long day? _

_ Just not feeling well.  _ Cas texted

_ I’m sorry to hear that <3  _ Dean texted back.  _ You working tomorrow? I’ll bring soup :) _

Cas smiled at his phone.


	3. Chapter 3

“Oh,” Cas said, dumbly, when he opened his front door the next morning to find a black muscle car in his driveway and his fake boyfriend on the stoop with an armful of tupperware. “Oh, you weren’t joking.”

“Of course not?” Dean replied with a laugh. He pushed past Cas, into the house, pausing to give him a peck on the cheek. “Why would I be joking?”

“We’ve been dating for four days.”

“Five if you count Friday,” Dean said, as Cas padded along behind him on their way to the kitchen. “And that’s practically a week.”

“No, it’s not,” Cas said. Not that a week would be justification for this much care and assistance, he didn’t think, though he would have to admit to himself that it wasn’t like he  _ minded. _

He was starting to realize, however, that this was just sort of who Dean was - a helper by nature. It was probably what drew him to his career as a firefighter, and made him very attractive as a partner, surely. Not that Cas cared, so long as Dean stayed close and didn’t ask too many questions.

Both having arrived in the kitchen, Dean was already unlocking his tupperware, looking through Cas’ cupboards for bowls. Cas grabbed his arm. “You have no sense of self preservation, and I kind of like it, but it worries me.”

“What, you think I’m gonna burn myself on hot soup?” Dean asked in a low voice, waggling his eyebrows.

“I was thinking more that for all you know, I could be contagious,” Cas said. Dean shrugged.

“Then you were contagious when we played tonsil hockey on the weekend,” he said. “If I’m going to be bed bound by illness, I’d rather be bed bound with a sexy nurse.”

“Because of the sexy or because of the nurse?” Castiel asked, finding Dean’s good humor horribly infectious.

“Yes,” Dean replied, simply, and turned his attention back to dishing out soup, still steaming hot in the plastic container.

He shooed Cas towards the table, and as much as being waited on made him uncomfortable, Cas was caught up in the question of why Dean had gone to such trouble. He’d clearly spent his free morning making the soup and then come directly to Castiel’s house, and it marked Dean’s third consecutive day off spent with Cas, seemingly just because.

Dean must actually really like him, he thought, and then he filed that thought away for some other time. Never, if Cas could help it - it seemed like the kind of idea he couldn’t look at directly and stay comfortable. Like a solar eclipse.

“Do you think you’re contagious?” Dean asked, conversationally, after they’d sat down at the kitchen table with their bowls. “Do you think it’s just a cold or what?”

Cas hummed, thinking on how to explain enough to satisfy Dean’s curiosity with half-truths. If he told Dean the story he’d told when he’d called in sick to work - that he was suffering with side effects from his “concussion” - Dean would only worry, and hurry him back to the hospital for more useless tests that would find nothing. He took another spoonful of soup and swallowed slowly.

“No, I’m not contagious,” he said, at last. “It’s more of a… an energy thing. I get fatigued if I don’t take proper care of myself. I slipped up, recently, and now I’m feeling the consequences.”

“So it’s a chronic thing?” Dean asked. Cas nodded - close enough. “How long does it usually last?”

“I don’t know when it’ll get better,” Cas said, honestly. “Or how to fix it. Something’s different, this time. I’m waiting on a… a second opinion. From a colleague.”

He was referring, of course, to Meg, but Dean didn’t need to know that. Cas didn’t need the added pressure of trying to weave her back into the web of white lies and misdirection a second time. 

“That must be scary,” Dean said, gently.

Cas nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

“Well, in the meantime, what can I get for you?” Dean asked, a small smile bringing a little light back into the conversation. “Orange juice? Vitamins? Those LED sunlight things?”

Cas smiled, setting down his spoon. “You’re sweet,” he said.

“So I’ve been told,” Dean replied.

Cas shrugged. “None of it will help much, anyway,” he sighed. “Not until my colleague figures out how to treat the underlying cause.”

Dean nodded, sagely. “So if I can’t fix it with vitamin C, I should just try to comfort you with some vitamin D.”

“... No, that won’t help, either,” Cas said. 

Dean barely suppressed a smirk. “No, like…  _ vitamin D,” _ he said. “It’s a pun.”

“Oh, I see. Is the D for ‘dick’ or for ‘Dean’?”

“Well now it’s for both,” Dean said, grinning widely. “If you’re up for it. I also love a good cuddle, if that’s more your speed right now.”

“It’s all fine, as long as you don’t mind me apparently coming in two minutes flat and passing out right after.”

“Wow, what a stud,” Dean said. “Be still my beating heart.”

“I told you - I’m not a bottom, necessarily. I’m just too tired to do the work,” he said.

Dean got up to collect the empty bowls. Rounding the table to Cas’ side, he kissed Cas’ head as he picked up his bowl. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, gentle and sweet. “I’ll take care of you.”

Which was how Cas ended up flat on his back in bed, his cock down Dean’s throat in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday. 

It had started almost chaste, with kisses and cuddles until Dean had spat some more snark at him and slipped under the sheets (until that had immediately become suffocating and overly warm, at which point they collectively shoved the blankets off the bed.) Cas’ pajama pants had been lost somewhere in among the sheets, his t-shirt rucked up and his dressing gown flung carelessly open. One hand gripped the headboard, while the other cradled Dean’s face, feeling his tongue and throat work in the soft places on the underside of his jaw. 

It was slow. Painfully, infuriatingly fucking slow. Dean took his sweet time, sucking so softly and with such a gentle rhythm that Cas could easily have mistaken it for absent mindedness, as if Dean wasn’t quite aware it was a dick in his mouth rather than a finger, or a pen he’d been chewing on. 

Cas whined, low in the back of his throat, and pressed his hips up. Dean braced his forearms across Castiel’s thighs and pinned his hips right back down. Right when Cas thought he was finally going to tip over that precipice, Dean pulled off with a pop, leaving him wanting. Cas groaned.

Dean made his way up Castiel’s body, pressing a few dry kisses to his stomach as he passed. He planted his elbows either side of Cas’ head on the pillow and dipped down to claim his mouth, full and deep. 

When he drew back up, Dean nuzzled the tip of his nose against Cas’ in a way that was just too fucking innocent to cohabitate with the swollen red shine on his mouth. 

“Sorry, something you wanted, sweetheart?” Dean asked.

“Oh, fuck you,” Cas said, meaning to spit it out in annoyance, but ended up with a laugh bubbling out of his chest as he spoke.

“And is that the request, or are you just pissed?” Dean asked.

Cas huffed. “I don’t care how you wanna do it, just  _ please,  _ Dean,” Cas said.

“Please what?”

“Please make me come,” Cas replied, taking hold of Dean’s face and dragging him back down for more kisses, which waylaid their conversation for at least a few minutes, during which he satisfied himself with little aborted thrusts up against Dean’s thigh.

“I don’t know, Cas,” Dean mumbled against Cas’ lips, when they stopped for breath. “A whole orgasm? In your weary state? You sure you can handle that?”

“I could fucking  _ kill you, Jesus Christ,” _ Cas said. “You’re  _ exhausting  _ when you want to be, you know tha-- ah!”

But Dean was already on it. He shifted his hips to slot their legs together more perfectly, his leg between Castiel’s and grinding down onto him, pressing their cocks together in the space between them, separated only by the thin cotton layer of Dean’s boxers. That layer didn’t last long, however, as Dean pulled the elastic down far enough to get his own dick out, finally giving Cas that wonderful feel of skin-on-skin, and wrapped one wide hand around them both. The slide was wet with Dean’s saliva, still spread all over Cas’ cock.

“What’s the magic word?” Dean teased, though his voice was somewhat strained now that he was chasing his own pleasure, as well as Castiel’s.

“I said please already,” Cas said.

“Yeah,” Dean admitted. “But then you called me exhausting, so I’m gonna need Sweet Cas, not Mean Kinky Cas.”

“Do you think making me ask politely to come isn’t kinky?”

“Hm,” Dean hummed, and kissed Cas’ cheek. He stopped jacking them, providing little more than a gentle squeeze. “You’re welcome to come whenever you want, if you wanna do it yourself.”

Cas dropped his head back against the pillow, and whined shamelessly. He felt himself aching for more, hips twitching. How the fuck was it that Dean could deny himself at the same time as Cas and be so effortlessly composed?

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that only one of them was was having his energy literally drained from his body, but that was a thought Cas chose not to dwell on during sex.

“Fine, okay,” Cas said.  _ “Please,  _ then.”

Dean resumed stroking them, circling his hips against Cas’. “Please and thank you?” He asked.

“Don’t push your luck,” Cas breathed, pressing up to meet Dean’s grinding. Dean laughed breathlessly in his ear, pressing forward, more, onwards like this was it and they both needed to come right this goddamn second. 

“You’re so much fucking fun,” Dean whispered, so quiet Cas wasn’t even sure he was expected to hear it except for that Dean’s mouth was so close to his ear.

But then Dean’s mouth was on his neck, instead, high up just at the corner of Cas’ jaw, and sucking a hickey there. Cas’ hips stuttered, and he came so hard he felt his whole body and all his systems go down, momentarily. He forgot where he was, for a moment, literally lost his vision for about a minute, and in the fog, he laid there panting, feeling Dean work himself desperately through to catch up, and spill across Cas’ stomach.

Dean rolled off of him, and Cas felt himself pulled onto his side. A hand in his hair pulled him in for a series of long, slow kisses, legs intertwined, loose and pliant. He felt sweaty, having kept his top layers on, even if his lower half was suddenly freezing cold. As if reading his mind, Dean let go of Cas’ lips and pulled up the blanket over the two of them.

Cas blinked until he could actually see Dean again, and felt himself smile.

Dean was on a 24 hours on, 48 hours off schedule at the fire station, and so after spending Tuesday with Cas, had to run his own errands and visit family on Wednesday before grabbing a few hours of sleep and heading back to work. 

Cas was on a 24/7 off schedule, on account of his complaining of fatigue and pain immediately after a suspected concussion and his generous, union-backed sick leave benefits. So when Dean left, Cas stayed right where he was, and slept.

When he wasn’t sleeping, in the few hours at a time he managed to sit up, or even be on his feet, he looked through what books he had on hand to research from and tried to figure out how to make things right with Buer before he became bedbound. The fatigue wasn’t a one-time drain, evidently. It had gotten worse since Friday, worse since Monday, and he was really and truly beginning to panic.

_ Anything yet? _ He texted Meg.  _ The low energy’s still getting worse, I’m taking time off work. _

_ Not yet, _ she replied.

By the time Friday came along - one week since ground zero, since  _ the _ big fuck up, Cas had at at least accepted this; it wasn’t going to get better on its own.

And then Dean came over with take out and a picnic blanket, and something in Castiel felt, inexplicably, like everything was gonna be okay.

“Are we having a picnic?” Cas asked.

Dean grinned, wide and bright. “We can go to that state park outside of town, if you want, but I figured your backyard is nice.”

Cas took the food from Dean, smiling at his hands. “That was very thoughtful of you, Dean, thank you,” he said. “I’ll get some dishes, if you want to go set up outside?”

“Sure,” Dean said, still beaming. He leaned in, before parting, to cup Castiel’s jaw and give him a quick, casual little kiss, then he turned and made a beeline for the door onto the back patio.

Cas stood there for significantly longer than was reasonable, watching Dean go. He realized, absently, that such a small gesture was making something flutter to life inside of him. A moment later, it turned to a dull horror - because Dean was just a means to an end, right? Because sooner or later it seemed one or both of them would be paying the price for Castiel’s fuck up the night they met. It was dark enough to know this was a falsehood he was giving Dean. It was darker still to realize he had momentarily forgotten that.

Still.

Cas took the food into the kitchen and started pulling down plates from the cupboard. Still, what was he supposed to do then and there? Nothing. Accept the affection. Offer some in return. It was a ruse he had to keep up, even if it wasn’t all a ruse. Even if Castiel had found himself already falling--

Nope. No way. 

Bury that deep. Attraction was nothing to be ashamed of. Anything more was dangerous.

Once outside, they set up on the blanket and ate burgers from Dean’s favourite mom n’ pop roadside diner, and Dean made no mention of the fact that Cas was still in his pajamas.

Sitting cross legged on the lawn, sun caught in his dirty blond hair, Dean looked amazing. Handsome and happy, shining in a way he hadn't quite in the night time.

The greasy food didn’t sit well in Cas’ stomach, and he had to excuse himself to go inside and throw most of it up.

When they were finished, they laid down side by side in the sun. It warmed Cas’ body, fighting off the chills he’d started to develop in the intervening two days. He closed his eyes, and with his head pillowed on Dean’s shoulder and Dean’s arms around him, he dozed off without even noticing.

The sun was going down by the time he woke, curled up on his side, alone. Dean had wiggled out from under him, at some point, and he found the throw blanket from the sofa had been tucked around him. The darkening sky left the backyard in shadow, but a yellow light shone through the sliding glass door into the house.

“Dean?” Castiel asked, opening the door, blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

Dean turned from his position at the sink when he heard the door slide open. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he said with a smile.

“Sorry,” Cas muttered. “I didn’t mean to.”

“That’s ok,” Dean said. “You’re sick. You need your rest. I figured I’d clean up and see you for dinner.”

“Clean up?” Cas asked. He looked at the dish rack and realized Dean had not only washed their dishes from lunch, but the dishes that had been abandoned in the sink for days and the coffee mugs that had been scattered across the house.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean said, waving Cas off. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Cas argued.

Dean sighed. “What’d I just say?” He asked. “Don’t worry about it. Being sick sucks, I’m happy to help if it means I get to hang out with you.”

“Why?” 

Dean paused, clearly puzzled by the question. “Why?”

“Why would you even want to spend time with me?” Cas asked. “You don’t know me.”

Dean shrugged. “I know you’re a good listener. I know you’re smart, and interesting. I know you know what you want, and you go for it.”

“But what have I done for you lately?” Cas asked. “How do you know I’m good for  _ you?” _

“We met a week ago, Cas,” Dean said with an incredulous laugh. “What, am I supposed to be deciding now if we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives together? Should I have expected you to move a mountain for me by now?”

“No, but--”

“I  _ like _ you,” Dean said. “It’s that simple.”

“You can like someone and not become a full time caretaker for them, Dean,” Cas sighed. “You don’t have to be here all the time, I don’t expect that from you.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Dean asked.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Is it what you meant?”

“No,” Cas said, evenly.

Dean leaned back against the counter, clearly deep in thought. After a minute, he just sort of shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t know, I just feel good when I’m around you, Cas. You make me feel… I don’t know. Awake, I guess.”

“Awake?” Cas asked.

“Like I can do anything, and it’s always easy, and I want to do anything and everything, as long as I can do it with you,” Dean explained. “It’s stupid, maybe, like a new love infatuation type thing.”

“You don’t know me enough to love me, Dean,” Cas said.

Dean threw his hands up, and sighed. “Okay, wrong words, whatever. It just would have been weird to say I have a crush on my fucking boyfriend.”

“... Am I your boyfriend?” Cas asked, suddenly very distracted from the point.

Shaking his head, Dean laughed, a soft, fond little scoff. “Well, sadly, I’m still not dating Chris Hemsworth, so it sure seems that way,” he said.

“... Okay,” Cas said softly.

He liked the sound of that. Of “boyfriend.” He just wished he could shake his memory of the fact that it was a word that would go away the minute the truth came out. Cas wasn’t quite sure if he wanted that day to be sooner rather than later - the longer he stayed sick, the long he had the excuse to keep Dean. The sooner he got well, the sooner he’d inevitably lose him.

It wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Wasn’t supposed to feel like… like something real.

“You’re been down with your narcolepsy thing this week,” Dean said. “I’m sure you’ll hit me back next time I catch a cold. Deal?”

Absently, Cas wondered if there would be a “next time.” Probably not, he decided. By the time whatever was wrong with him was fixed, the truth would have come out, and then… 

And then Dean wouldn’t ever want to see him again. Or worse.

“Okay,” Cas said, slowly, nodding. He didn’t have the heart to bicker, anyway. “Okay, deal.”

“You over it, now?” Dean asked. “Are we good?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Cas replied. He hesitated, for a moment, before stepping into Dean’s personal space and wrapping his arms around him. “I’m sorry. I just sort of had a moment, I guess.”

Dean sighed, and hugged back. “I get it. You’re not feeling well, and you’re stressed. Nothin’ to be sorry for,” he said.

“I have a lot to be sorry for,” Cas mumbled, only half expecting Dean to hear him. He knew, however, that Dean would have no idea what he was talking about, and part of him was starting to sweat under the weight of the secret, yearning to come clean.

“Nah,” Dean drawled. “Do me a favour and don’t even start with that shit, Cas. You’re a sweetheart.”

Cas scoffed.  _ “You’re  _ a sweetheart,” he said. “I’m…”

He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, when he trailed off, but Dean quickly swooped in and interrupted his line of thinking. “Careful, I’ve got a responsibility to throw down with anyone who disrespects my boyfriend,” Dean said.

“Including your boyfriend?” Cas asked.

“Especially that asshole, yeah.”

Cas huffed a little laugh, rested his head on Dean’s shoulder, and squeezed.

A muffled ringing woke Castiel sometime that evening. His room was dark, as was the sky outside his window. He was alone, but the soft sound of a Dunkin’ Donuts TV commercial wafted up from the living room, letting him know Dean hadn’t left, he just wasn’t able to sleep as much as Castiel needed to.

The ring that shook him awake, however, was emanating from the pocket of his dressing gown, which had been tossed over the foot of the bed sometimes earlier in the evening. Cas shuffled down the bed and turned it over until he found the pocket that held his phone.  _ Meg, _ read the caller ID.

“Hello?” Cas drawled, as he answered.

“How’re you feeling?” Meg demanded, with exactly no preamble.

“Fine?” Cas offered, taken aback by her urgency. He felt, very suddenly, like he was under attack.

“Seriously fine, or is that just what you think you’re supposed to say when someone asks how you’re doing?” Meg asked.

“Did you…” Cas glanced towards the bedroom, door, standing ajar and letting in a thin sliver of light from the hallway. He got out of bed and shut it. “So I take it I don’t need to tell you that Buer’s left me out to dry, then?”

“What?”

“That my power is all but gone?” Cas said. What could she possibly mean if not that? “That I’m tired all the time?”

“Well, yes. That,” Meg said, hurried, rushing to pull on that thread. “Which, by the way, why the fuck would you not tell me you were dying?”

“I told you from day one that I was tired--” Cas began, and then his brain caught up with his ears and he cut himself off. “Wait, dying?”

“Buer hasn’t left you,” Meg said. “Or at least, that’s not the reason you’re sick.”

“What?”

“Dean’s an incubus.”

“...  _ What?” _

“I found a spell - the one you did by accident,” Meg explained. “You didn’t just give Buer Dean’s life, you gave Hell his being, too. He died, and then his soul took a big express trip through the whole demonization process and popped right back into his body. Instant sex demon, just add water.”

Sitting on his bed, listening to Meg, his mind replayed the last few days in stunning high definition, and things started to slot into place. There was the physical exhaustion, the spiritual exhaustion that meant the one healing he’d performed since sacrificing Dean knocked him on his ass for days, the fact that every orgasm Dean gave him made him understand why the French call it “the little death”… 

“Does he know?” Cas asked, wondering aloud. Because if that was why Dean was so easy to keep around, if Dean had been using him just as much as Cas had been using Dean… The thought was a little more than Cas was ready to accept, making his chest go tight.

“Probably not,” Meg said. “He’s probably just especially horny - pun not intended - and feels really good. Have you been fucking him since, you know, fucking him?”

“A couple times, nothing uh… not… not anal,” Cas said. Discussing it so frankly made him feel squeamish, but he figured it was relevant. “Does that count, for sex demon purposes?”

“Eh,” Meg said, and he could almost hear her shrug through the phone. “I don’t think it’s as ‘tab a in slot b’ and the old books say. Seems to me like he just kinda absorbs orgasm energy. So first off - you need to stop that shit right away.”

“Okay,” Cas said.

“The good news is that I think you can charge back up, after a while, and the other good news is that I know how to kill him.”

Cas blinked. “Kill him?”

“Yeah, kill him,” Meg said. “Make him spit out some of the lifeforce he took from you and keep him from fucking the life outta anyone else.”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong!” Cas exclaimed.

“Since when do you care?” Meg asked. “He hadn’t done anything wrong when you tried to kill him the first time. Finishing the job is the only thing that’ll let you get better.”

“This is different. I got him into this,” Cas said. “If we just… if I break it off with him, will I get  _ worse?” _

“No, but his next hookup or partner will,” Meg said. “Yes, you got him into this. You have a responsibility to clean up your mistake, Cas. I love you, he’s nice or whatever, I get it, but--”

“Could he control it?” Cas asked, cutting her off.

“I don’t know.”

“Could he at least try?”

There was a long pause. Meg sighed.

“You’re gonna die if you don’t leave him, you realize that?” She asked.

He… hadn’t, actually. But the facts were starting to settle in, and he knew in his heart that Meg was probably right.

But he also knew in his heart that it wasn’t that simple, anymore. 

“Yes,” Cas said quietly.

“Do whatever you want, Cas,” Meg said, bitterness on her tongue. “But clean up your mess.”

The line went dead before Castiel could respond.

“Morning, Sunshine,” Dean greeted, softly, when Cas reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into the living room. The room was dim, light cast only by the flickering television. It cast strange shadows on Dean’s gentle smile.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Cas replied, as he came over to join Dean on the couch. 

“Anytime you wake up counts as the morning, in my eyes,” Dean teased. Cas half-heartedly pushed him around until they were laying down together, and Dean, unresisting, moved easily to Cas’ whims. 

When they settled in, Dean facing out and Cas facing Dean, Cas pressed himself against Dean’s chest and closed his eyes. Dean’s free hand slid under Cas’ open dressing gown and cradled his back.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

Can hummed, nodding against Dean. “Just tired,” he said. “Wanted to be with you.”

Dean kissed the top of his head.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Cas mumbled. “Just a little. I’m sorry, I know it’s too early for that not to be weird.”

Dean chuckled, softly, and Cas felt it reverberate through his chest. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re both a little weird.”

Breathing Dean in, with Dean’s thumb running absent minded circles on his shoulder blade, Cas let himself drift back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean wasn’t living with Cas. Really. Swear to God.

But he had started going straight to Cas’ after work, and sleeping over every night he wasn’t at the fire station. He couldn’t sleep, he said, knowing Cas was alone, in his big house, with no one to help him if he passed out, or fell down the stairs, or fell asleep with the stove on.

“I’ve got chronic fatigue, not dementia,” Cas had argued, as if he didn’t know those possibilities were becoming actual threats to his well being.

“I’m gonna get chronically fatigued if I can’t sleep worrying about you,” Dean had said, despite the fact that he slept very little and yet never seemed tired, likely a side effect of his recent change of species. Cas had let it go.

This was how he was able to tell himself that he hadn’t  _ asked  _ Dean to move in, so he wasn’t  _ really _ being all that stupid, right? He hadn’t asked Dean to move in, just like he didn’t start anything with him in the bedroom, just like he played the headache card, even when everything in him wanted to fuck Dean within an inch of his life. Or, he did most of the time.  _ Almost _ all the time. He wasn’t being stupid.

And yes, he had fallen to temptation, once or twice. But he was  _ working on it.  _

Whoever came up with that old “just say no” slogan had clearly never dated an incubus.

And as much as he hated to admit it, as stupid as it made him feel, that’s exactly what Castiel was doing - dating an incubus. “Just saying no” was an option, of course. It was on the table. It was just that there was no “just” about it.

_ Just _ walk away from someone he was developing real feelings for.  _ Just _ stop seeing the only person who was there for him.  _ Just _ ignore him in the bedroom when Cas knew how incredible he was. Castiel, simply put, was only human.

But there had been consequences for those failures to say no. And they were getting worse.

The mornings after Dean worked were always nice. Sometimes Cas would sleep right through Dean’s arrival in the evening, and would wake up to the pleasant surprise of a spooning partner and the smell of Dean’s shampoo. The best part was the hour or two they’d spend tangled up in the sheets, cuddling or kissing or dozing. Those were the mornings Cas was too weak to make excuses, half the time. He told himself he was getting better at saying no.

This was one such morning. Still half asleep, Cas kissed lazily, letting Dean guide him with lips and tongue and a hand cradling Cas’ stubbly jaw. Cas’ hands were under Dean’s t-shirt. Every few minutes they’d break off and mumble something sweet to each other, half incoherent as they waited for their personalities to load for the day.

Legs already entangled, a shift brought their hips in close, and not surprising Castiel in the least, he felt Dean’s prominent erection against his thigh. The spark of  _ fuck yes _ was doused an instant later, as his brain caught up to his dick. The discovery of arousal, however, was mutual - Dean’s own thigh ground up between Cas’ legs, making him hiss.

Cas felt Dean smile against his mouth. “This for me?” Dean asked.

Castiel groaned into Dean’s lips, full-body frustrated. “No,” he said. “Well, yes, but…”

“Not feeling well?” Dean asked gently, pulling back a fraction.

“It’s okay,” Cas sighed. He shifted again, putting a little distance between their hips, and slid one hand into Dean’s boxers. “Here, just let me.”

He resumed kissing Dean, who made a surprised little grunt in the back of his throat as Cas got a hand on him and started to stroke. “Are you sure I can’t--” He managed, between kisses.

“I’m sure,” Cas replied.

Getting Dean off with his hands had become a key survival strategy for Cas, and he’d gotten good at it, too. He had Dean moaning against his neck in minutes, panting and whispering little  _ sweetheart _ s and  _ fuck yes _ es, a beautiful soundtrack that only made Cas wish more that he could join in fully. Dean spilled into his hand a short while later, desperate and clinging to him.

Dean pressed soft, chaste little kisses to Cas’ collar as he came down, and eventually returned to himself breathless and satisfied. As his hands roamed, one brushed so lightly over Cas’ still-hard cock that Cas might have almost thought it an accident.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Dean asked.

“Yes, Dean,” Cas said, kissing his cheek.

“Because I kind of feel like an asshole, here.” He laughed a little as he said it, but Cas could see the insecurity behind the joke.

Though he wanted very little in the world more than to say yes, to let Dean give him everything he knew he wanted, Cas shook his head. He unselfconsciously adjusted himself in his boxers. “My head hurts,” he said quietly. “It’ll raise my blood pressure and give me a terrible migraine. This was… I still like this, I promise.”

He would jack off in the shower, later, and it would be painfully unsatisfying, but if he was far enough from Dean when he came, at least it wouldn’t make him any sicker. His discovery of the particular mechanics of incubus-safe sex had come thanks to about a week of deeply uncomfortable trial and error, but he knew, then, what he could get away with.

Dean forced a half smile, and nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said. He kissed Cas’ forehead and then started to shimmy out from under the covers. “Can I at least make you a thank you coffee?”

Cas smiled back, and meant it. “Yes, please.”

He watched Dean get dressed, and head downstairs, and lived, momentarily, in the comfortable delusion that he could keep this up forever.

Cas had that shower, and it was exactly as unsatisfying as he’d anticipated. 

But, very satisfying despite its chastity, he then came downstairs to a kiss in the kitchen and a warm mug of coffee, fixed just how he liked it.

Dean had retrieved the Saturday morning paper from the doorstep, and Cas thumbed through it to find the puzzle page. He carefully tore it in half, and Dean settled in at one end of the sofa with a leaky blue pen and the sudoku half of the page propped up on this thigh, while Cas sat across from him with the crossword and a pencil, writing on the back of a hardcover book. Their legs and feet crowded together in the middle of the three cushions on the sofa, Cas tucking one of his cold feet under Dean’s ass and Dean having one foot planted, awkwardly but not uncomfortably, on Cas’ stomach. 

The little moments were worth everything else, Cas thought, absently running his fingers over Dean’s shin as he considered one of the crossword clues. This, here, was worth whatever complications it took to keep them together.

They didn’t need to break up, because they didn’t need sex. Or at least, Cas didn’t. And Cas could get away with pretending not to want it if he couldn’t have it. And in that moment, it felt like that was the only barrier, the only little doubt in the back of Cas’ mind. He could overcome that - so they’d be fine, right?

Dean resolved to make a grocery run that afternoon. He made a list, grabbed his keys, and promised to be back in a half hour. From his seat in the living room, Cas heard the door open, and then Dean seemed to stall on the front step.

“Oh, hey!” Dean greeted someone, brightly. 

“Well, hey, Dean,” that someone said, and with a dull horror, Cas recognized Meg’s voice. “Good timing, I was just coming by to see you two.”

Cas was already on his feet, making his way hurriedly down the hall towards the front door.

“I’m just running out on a quick errand, actually, but I can go later,” Dean replied.

Coming into the doorway behind Dean, Cas saw Meg standing on the lawn, black hair shining in the sunlight, her car parked across the road. She noticed him and sent him a wide smile. “Hey, you,” she chirped. “I came about that thing we talked about? On the phone?”

“What thing?” Dean asked, with a tone of idle curiosity, as he turned to Cas.

“It’s a church thing,” Cas said, firing off the first excuse he could think of. “Do you mind running to the store now? We’re out of…” Cas raked his brain for something on the list he’d literally just handed Dean five minutes previous, but the panic was shaking him up, and he was blanking. “Bread?”

“Bread?” Dean asked. 

“Well, clearly Meg will stay for lunch, and we can’t make sandwiches for lunch if we don’t have bread,” Cas explained, knowing he sounded absolutely absurd, but at a loss for any better argument to get Dean away from there, and from Meg, immediately. Even if her intentions weren’t as he thought, this wasn’t a conversation he wanted Dean to overhear.

Dean looked confused. He clearly didn’t believe Cas, but he did give a half-shrug, pat Cas’ shoulder, and mutter, “alright.”

Meg watched Dean carefully as he went, returning the nod and “see ya” he gave her as he passed. She and Cas stood on the front step, watching Dean until he got in his car and drove away.

Clearly in no hurry, Meg hummed in thought as she watched the black muscle car turn the corner at the end of the road. Then, she turned to Cas. “You gonna let me in or what?”

Reluctantly, Cas obliged.

He turned to lead her inside, and she immediately began prattling on. “It’s good timing, really. Better to have a stocked fridge, save you a trip.”

Cas turned on his heel, and it was only in that moment, his careful mask laid aside, that he realized how goddamn angry he was. “I already told you, I’m not killing him,” he snapped. “So if that’s why you’re here--”

Meg threw her hands up in front of her. “I’m not gonna make you kill him, Cas,” she said. “I know it’s different when you know someone. I know you played house with him a little too long, and now you're attached. I get it.”

“Then what do you want?” Cas asked.

“I’m just here to take care of it for you,” Meg said, gently. She laid a hand on his cheek, softly, like a mother comforting her child. Cas wanted to shrug her off, but didn’t. “To make it easier.”

“What are you talking about?”

Meg shrugged. “I’m just saying, maybe when Dean gets back, you can go for a walk, or go sit in the garden, and when you come back, it’ll be done and we can all go back to normal,” she explained.

_ “No,”  _ Castiel insisted. 

Then he heard the tell-tale rumble of Dean’s car, pulling back into the driveway.

_ Shit. _

“Look, it'll be very quick,” Meg said, pulling an ornate blade out of the inside pocket of her jacket. She held it up for Cas to look at. “Very sharp, see?”

In a panic at the sight of the weapon, Cas made a grab for it, wrapping his hand around the guard and the scant few factions of an inch of the hilt Meg wasn’t already holding. The force of Cas’ lunge knocked them both into the wall, and a framed photo was knocked loose, glass shattering on the floor.

“Cas, what the fuck?” Meg snapped, pulling back for control of the knife.

_ “Don’t,” _ Cas said. He thought maybe he intended to be firm, to be threatening, but when it came down to it, the words sounded soft and weak in his throat. He was pleading with her, before he even knew it. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“It’s his life or yours,” Meg growled through gritted teeth.

Castiel took only a minute to think. He knew his answer. 

“Then it’s mine,” he said softly.

Something crossed Meg’s face, a look of confusion, and then realization, and then perhaps disgust, flashed in her eyes. Somewhere outside, Dean killed the engine.

With one mighty tug, Meg extracted herself and her knife from Cas’ grip, and a shock of fear ran through him at the loss of control. Except, Meg just stood there, against the wall, staring at him with her brows furrowed and that disgusted look on her face. But it wasn’t disgust, Castiel realized. Worse - it was pity.

“You’re in love with him,” she said, simply. It was a statement, not a question.

The door cracked open, and Meg hurriedly tucked the blade behind her back as Dean walked back into the house.

“Oh, hi,” Dean said, clearly surprised to see them still in the hallway. “Sorry, forgot my wallet.”

“Oh,” Cas said, simply for something to say.

He and Meg backed up, pressing into opposite walls to let Dean by in the narrow space. They watched one another, saying nothing as Dean walked into the kitchen, nor when he returned and scooted back past them to the door.

“Okay, I’ll be back in thirty,” Dean announced, before leaving once more.

“Be safe,” Cas called after him.

When the door closed behind Dean, Meg lowered her hand from the small of her back, the knife dangling limply from her fingers. She shook her head as if in disbelief.

“So what?” She asked. “You’re just gonna let him kill you?”

“No,” Cas said. “We’ll manage. Lots of people manage without sex.”

“Lots of people who don’t want to have sex manage without sex, Cas,” she said, almost gently. “You’re very gay, and he’s genetically predisposed towards being horny literally all the time. How long do you think this’ll last before you slip up? Or before it tears your relationship apart?”

Cas didn’t know. He shook his head. “I have to try,” he said.

“You could just leave,” Meg said. “At least he’d be someone else’s problem.”

“I tried, Meg,” he said weakly. “I wanted to. Or at least, I knew I needed to.”

“But you’re not strong enough for that, either, huh?”

“I guess not.”

Meg tucked the knife back into her jacket. She watched Cas for a minute more, however, before speaking. “You aren’t allowed to kill yourself for a guy, Cas.”

Humbled, shamed, he dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then we’ll figure something out,” he muttered, unable even to convince himself that the words were true. “But something else. Something that won’t hurt him.”

She sighed. Cas looked back up as she touched his shoulder, then his cheek, with her fingertips, watching him with care and concern.

Deep down, some part of him wanted her to embrace him, to be his friend again and tell him what to do. But she’d done that, already, hadn’t she? He just hadn’t liked the answer.

“Then figure something out, Cas,” she said. “Or I’ll have to.”

And without another word, she walked out the front door and left Castiel standing alone in the hallway, utterly lost.

“What was with you and Meg, today, by the way?” Dean asked, as he hung a freshly washed shirt up in Cas’ closet.

They were folding laundry, together, or rather Castiel was sitting on the bed, folding laundry, and Dean was ferrying the folded clothes to their correct places in Cas’ drawers.

“Nothing,” Cas lied, carefully executing a three-part Marie Kondo fold on a pair of jeans. “She just wanted to borrow a book and was in the area.”

“You aren’t sleeping with her, are you?” Dean asked.

Cas blinked. “What?” He asked, jumping to his own defense. “Of course not.”

Dean turned back from the closet and Cas could see the smirk on his lips. “I’m joking, babe,” he said. 

Cas whipped a t-shirt at him. “It’s not funny.”

Catching it one handed, Dean walked over to the bed and tossed it back in the pile as he sat down beside Cas. Cas just kept on folding.

“Seriously, though,” he said. “You were giving me some weird vibes. Just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Cas scoffed.

“Because it kinda feels like there’s something you’re not telling me,” Dean said.

Cas looked up from the laundry, and found Dean watching him with genuine concern. The lightness in the room, the escapism of domesticity in the face of the very real threats he’d already dealt with that day, evaporated. It pierced his heart with guilt - because Cas was the last person Dean should have been worried about right then. 

He owed Dean an explanation he could never give, he realized.

Falling back, instead, on half truths, Castiel took a deep breath and thought carefully about his words before speaking. “We’d been talking about my condition, is all,” he said, quietly. “And the worry about not knowing how to fix things.”

Cas felt Dean’s hand on his shoulder blade, a gesture of comfort. “Why’d you hide that from me?” Dean asked. “You don’t need to protect me from your condition, Cas. I know it’s bad, and I’m sticking with you anyway. I’m not gonna run away just because we don’t know how long it’ll take.”

_ No, but you will when you realize why it’s happening, _ Cas thought.

For a moment, an instant, he really considered coming clean. He considered putting it all out there, and letting the chips fall where they may, and either Dean would keep that promise or at least it would be over. At least Dean would be free of Cas, and Cas could start to heal.

Except, no. Because the thought of letting Dean leave made Castiel’s throat clench. It made him not care whether he got better or not. He felt like he was running towards a cliff, over and over, and flinching at the last moment.

“Cas?” Dean asked, when Castiel took too long to respond.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t force Dean to stay, either.

Somehow, a solution Cas’ mind could settle upon emerged, half formed. He wouldn’t scare Dean off with the past, but he’d be clear about what the future was likely to hold. Let that be the choice, and let Dean make his own decision. At least this way, if Dean left, he wouldn’t leave hating Cas.

“It probably won’t get better, Dean,” Cas admitted, speaking slowly and deliberately. “It might get worse.”

“Okay.”

“And you should know that I won’t be upset if that’s too much to ask you to deal with,” Cas said.

Dean took his hand. “It’s  _ not,”  _ he said. “You’re not a burden just because one small part of your life is inconvenient. You deserve to be cared for.”

Cas shook his head and laughed, bitterly. His throat was tight. Dean had no fucking idea.

“No, I don’t,” he said. His heart beat faster. He was getting emotional before he even knew why, before he had a chance to try to control it.

“You do,” Dean argued. “You’re a good person, Cas.”

“No, I’m not!” Cas spat. The hand not held in Dean’s was shaking. Weeks of exhaustion and frustration, and a deep, all consuming guilt, all felt like they were oozing out of him, making him want to laugh at himself and cry about it and have a good old fashioned  _ tantrum _ about it. “I’m-- you have no idea!”

_“Stop it,”_ Dean said firmly, freezing Cas’ downward spiral in its tracks. “I don’t know what’s up with you, right now, I don’t know why you’re being like this, but you’re talking a lot of shit about someone I love. Even if you don’t think you deserve it, accept that _I_ deserve to be allowed to love _you,_ okay? And _stop.”_

Castiel’s mind was somehow simultaneously reeling and blank, like the white noise between songs on a cassette. He realized he’d been on the verge of hyperventilating. 

It was wrong that Dean trusted him. It was wrong for Dean to want him, to want to make things right for him. It was worse that he couldn’t find the strength to take that cliff dive and  _ make _ Dean hate him like he deserved.

Dean was too good. He didn’t deserve to have to love Cas.

Cas wasn’t able to vocalize any of that, and after a minute or so, Dean wrapped his arms around him and pulled Cas gently into his chest. As he did, Cas’ breath hitched and he sobbed, just once. Then a second time, as he melted into Dean’s body, cradled against him. He was filled with shame at having to be coddled like a crying child, yet too desperate for comfort to push Dean away. He was just  _ so damn tired. _ Then, before he could choke it back, he was weeping into the collar of Dean’s shirt, as broad hands rubbed his back, soft  _ it’s okay _ s and  _ I got you _ s soothing out his violent edges until something went soft and loose within him, and he allowed himself to be held without protest.

Dean held him, there, until sometime shortly before he fell asleep. Sometime that evening, Dean left for work, and Cas arose to go to the washroom in the night to find a note on the opposite pillow.

_ Left you a plate in the fridge. _

_ Don’t forget that I love you. _

_ See you tomorrow night. _

And then Dean went to work.

And then Dean didn’t turn up on Monday.

And then Dean stopped replying to his texts.

_ Did you do something to Dean? _ Cas texted Meg, on the second day.  _ I haven’t heard from him, and I’m starting to worry.  _

_ I did what needed to be done, _ she replied.  _ I’m sorry, Cas. _

That was when he started texting Dean frantically, and leaving several voice messages at a time, and Googling Dean Winchester’s name when all else failed, just to check that it revealed no obituaries or gruesome murders in the news.

For three days, he lived with a roiling panic in his stomach. The kind that made him sit down and cry on his kitchen floor in the middle of the night, because he couldn’t allow himself to sleep, but couldn’t manage anything else. Because when he lay down to try to rest, a weight settled on his chest and made him suffocate with worry.

After three days of no contact, that panic settled and froze into a high-pressure sort of clarity. With as steady a mind as he could manage, he came up with a plan.

Castiel’s best guess was that, based on the pattern of Dean’s schedule, Wednesday evening would be the end of his next 24 hour shift. And so, with worry growing in his stomach, Cas tracked down the fire station, got dressed in real, outdoor clothing for the first time in what felt like forever, and drove over to hopefully find Dean when he got off work.

Cas was overjoyed to see Dean’s car in the fire station parking lot, a little spark of hope that at least, at very least, Dean was probably not dead. Why, then, he had gone radio silent was still weighing on him. But this, at least, united one of the tight knots in his chest.

The large garage doors were open to the street, showing off the trucks inside. Castiel hovered, awkwardly, at the edge of the concrete, peering in. He wasn’t sure if the public was allowed to just knock on the door, or go inside, or if this was some line he’d embarrass himself, and Dean, by crossing. 

There was a blonde woman working on the equipment on the side of one of the red fire trucks. She wore a short sleeved, navy blue button-up and slacks - her station uniform. She noticed him and shot him a wide, toothy smile. 

“Hey there!” She greeted him. “Something we can help you with?”

It took a minute for his brain to catch up with the fact that he had to actually open his mouth and move his tongue if he was going to communicate. Three days without any human contact, and weeks, by then, of only speaking to Dean, had left his social skills a bit rusty.

“Um, yes,” Cas said. “I’m a friend of Dean Winchester’s. I haven’t heard from him in a few days and I’m starting to worry. I was just wondering if he was here today.”

The woman hopped down from the truck. “Yeah, he’s here,” she said. “I’ll get him, hang on.”

“That’s not necess-” Cas began, but she’d already crossed the garage to an open door and was hollering Dean’s name into the building.

“What!?” Came Dean’s voice, muffled by distance and echoing down some hall into the garage.

Just hearing his voice again picked something up and put it back together inside Cas’ chest. But, like seeing Dean’s car, the knowledge that Dean was okay came with the dread of whatever his true reason was for cutting contact.

“Your boyfriend’s here!” The woman yelled back through the door. As they both waited for Dean to respond, or appear, she leaned against the door and shot Cas a raised eyebrow ‘why yes, I am in the know’ look. He smiled back, uncomfortable.

He couldn’t believe it had been this easy. He couldn’t believe how ridiculous he felt about the whole ‘crying on the kitchen floor’ thing, once he was actually there and, evidently, was a fun joke among Dean’s co-workers. He wasn’t quite sure if he was relieved or humiliated.

Dean power walked through the door and into the garage a minute later, looking about as panicked as Cas felt. His shoulders were tense, and Cas couldn’t help but notice the circles under his eyes.

“Hey,” Dean said, weakly. “What are you doing here?”

“I was worried about you,” Cas said, plainly. It should, he thought, have been obvious. “Can we talk?”

“I’m at work,” Dean said.

The blonde checked her watch. “Only for another twelve minutes.”

Dean turned to shoot her a look. She shot one back, inclining her head towards Cas. Dean hissed something at her that Castiel couldn’t hear, and she replied by aggressively mouthing something along the lines of  _ stop moping and fix it. _

“What if there’s a call?” Dean asked her.

“Half the next shift is already here,” she said, shooing them both out of the garage. “Go.”

When Dean had backed out onto the driveway, she reached for a panel by the door and slowly lowered the garage door, grinning as Dean glared daggers at her.

And then they were standing outside, alone together for the first time in three days. For the first time since whatever had caused Dean to run.

Dean let his head fall back, face turned towards the sky with his eyes closed and his lips pressed together in frustration. 

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” Cas said. He suddenly felt like a kid who knew he was about to be yelled at.

“No, you didn’t,” Dean said, shaking his head as he finally seemed to come back to the world around him. “Jo did, but you didn’t. What is it, anyway? What do you want?”

“I was worried about you,” Cas said. “Meg gave me the impression she came to see you and… and that it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Yeah, yeah, I saw Meg.”

“Are you alright?” Cas asked. “Did she hurt you?”

Dun rubbed the back of his neck, clearly on the fence about something. “We can’t talk about this here,” he said, at last. “Did you drive here?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay to drive? I could get one of the guys to drive you home, or…”

“I’m not that sick,” Cas argued. “Besides, why don’t I just go with you?”

A pained look crossed Dean’s face, and Cas reached for his arm, to try and comfort him. After all, clearly whatever Meg had said, or done, had scared him. Except that when his fingers touched Dean’s exposed arm, he flinched. Dean jumped back as if he’d been burned, and raised his arms as if in self defense.

Which gave Castiel pause. Because until that moment, he thought it was  _ Meg _ that had scared Dean. And suddenly, like a cold stone in the pit of his stomach, he realized Dean was afraid of  _ him.  _ His heart began to break in slow motion.

“Oh,” Cas said, softly. “I… I think I understand. Maybe I should just go.”

“Cas--”

“No, Dean, I understand.”

“Shut up, okay?” Dean said, finally meeting Cas’ eye for the first time that day. “I wanna talk about it. I’ve decided we should talk about it.”

“You haven’t wanted to talk about it for three days,” Cas argued. “And you clearly don’t want to be near me.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Dean said, as if that was the be-all-end-all of the argument. 

When Cas didn’t argue the point, Dean gestured for Cas to follow and led him around the far side of the building, to the same gravel parking lot in which Cas had parked earlier. The sun was setting, painting the cars, and Dean, in a gentle orange glow. The roads were quiet.

Silently, Dean unlocked his car and got in. Castiel didn’t know why he hesitated, hand on the door handle, but he did. He stood with his fingers on the chrome and wondered if this was it - the breakup. Making it official. 

He steeled himself, and got into the car. The first few minutes of the ride were silent, and that silence was thick and tangible in the cab of the old Chevy. Cas almost felt like he was suffocating in it. Despite the freedom of the bench seat, the casual touch it should have allowed, Dean kept to his side of the bench, and Cas respectfully did the same. 

They weren’t even halfway to Cas’ house when he broke, unable to stand the quiet any longer.

“What did Meg want?” Castiel asked, eyes half-focused as he stared out the front windshield.

Dean hesitated a half-beat. “She wanted me to leave you,” he replied, frankly. 

There was something around the edge of his voice that was worn out, and tired. Cas wanted to reach out to him, but thought better of it.

“Why?” Cas asked. He knew the answer, of course, but wanted to ascertain exactly what Dean knew, instead. Dean, however, shook his head.

“No, uh… I think there’s something you need to tell me first,” he said. Cas had never heard him so joyless and on task in a conversation. Something about it very suddenly made him feel like a bug pinned to a card, and not in a good way. “Something I shouldn’t have had to hear from Meg.”

That gave Cas his answer; Meg told him everything.

He took a moment, took a breath. There was nothing sweeping or dramatic about this scene, only awkwardness and discomfort and a deep, hollow shame. 

What was he supposed to say? Nothing he could say would make any of it any better.

When Cas took too long to answer, Dean sighed. The two feet between them felt like a million miles. “I mean, you can lie again,” he said, in a way that should have sounded accusatory but only came across as defeated. “I’ll be disappointed, but I won’t be surprised.”

And... okay, then. This was going to be it. If honesty was the only thing Dean wanted from him, anymore, Cas would give Dean that much.

It would feel like carving his own heart out, sure, but he’d do it.

“I’m sorry,” Cas said, forcing the words out one by one. “I know it’s unforgivable, I know there’s no point in talking about it, but please, know that I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For… for all of it,” Cas said. “For everything Meg told you.”

Dean shook his head. “I told you, man, I wanna hear it from you,” he said. “I want you to be honest with me, this one time.”

“I  _ was _ honest with you, Dean,” he said. “The night we met I told you everything, and you just didn’t believe me. At some point, it just seemed kinder to go along with what you wanted, so I slept with you. And maybe that was fucked up, and I won’t pretend like anyone twisted my arm, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think it was the better option of the two.”

“And you didn’t see a third option of maybe, like, not trying to kill me?” Dean asked.

There was something absurdist in the even tone and lack of flair in that statement. It was almost like they were arguing about household responsibilities, or flirting with other people, or whatever real couples argued about. Not murder.

“That’s… that’s fair,” Cas said. “In any case, I failed. Meg told me to keep you close, so when you wanted to stay I just played along. But things changed, for me. When I realized I could leave, that we were probably bad for each other… I don’t know. I just couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You mean to say you got sick and you needed me,” Dean said. The rough defeat in his voice ached in Castiel’s chest.

“No,” Cas said. “I mean I fell for you. Meg tried to get me to break things off with you weeks ago, because…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Something about coming clean all the way, getting to that last absurd leap of logic was just too much. It wasn’t like it mattered. Dean would never believe him, anyway.

That was around the time they pulled into Castiel’s driveway. Dean turned off the ignition, but they both stayed in their seats.

“The way we started, I know this can’t be what I wanted it to be,” Cas admitted, instead of burdening Dean with the full truth that he could never accept. “I know what I did was unforgivable. I know we’re a danger to each other. But for all the wrong I did, I have never lied to you about how I felt.”

He looked up at Dean, as he finished, and knew he had said his piece. Dean was looking back at him. He honestly expected more anger to flare behind Dean’s eyes, but looking at him now, all he saw was the exhaustion. The ghost of the last few days, of the coming-to-terms, and this… this was all just closure. This was just laying it all out on the table so Dean could pack it away in a little box and bury it. Maybe that’s what it should have been for Castiel, too, to get these confessions out of the space between his ribs, but all it left him with was the hopeless knowledge that the consequences, when they finally caved in on him, only brought more suffering for them both.

“Thank you,” Dean said, quiet and broken, and Cas had no idea what he was being thanked for.

“Whatever you feel you need to do with that information, you should do,” Cas said, after a pause. “But on compassionate grounds, seeing as I’m probably dying, I’d appreciate not having to die in prison for attempted murder.”

To Cas’ shock, Dean laughed. It was one of his half-scoffs, the way he’d laugh at his own joke before he even said it, and though the smile it accompanied didn’t quite reach Dean’s eyes, Cas was falling over himself for those crumbs of the man he’d fallen in love with.

“I don’t think they do the witch trials anymore, lucky for you,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And, uh, speaking of which… or speaking of witches…”

“What?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Dean asked.

It took several moments for Cas to catch up, but he got there eventually. “I believe what I practice,” he said, the simplest explanation possible. “But I figure ‘demons are real’ is a hard sell, and you’ve heard enough bombshells for one day.”

Dean shook his head. “Ok, my turn,” he said. “I have a story. It starts with Meg tracking me down in a coffee shop, yadda yadda yadda, it ends with her stabbing me with a fork.”

Cas blinked at him. “What?”

With a shrug, Dean nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Right through my hand, into the linoleum countertop, blood everywhere. And she said ‘keep track of how long that takes to heal’ and then ran before the baristas called the cops.”

Not knowing what else to say, Cas just said, “I’m sorry.”

“It took about seven minutes,” Dean said. He held out his hand, showing Cas the back and the palm. 

There was a long minute, in which they were both, it seemed, gauging the other’s reaction. 

“So… you know that, too,” Cas said slowly.

“Yeah.”

There was another long pause.

“So do you think we’re insane, or…?”

“I did, before it turned out I’m Superman,” Dean replied. “Now… yeah. Demons are real. I have become a child of the night, or whatever. I’m down with your premise.”

Castiel opened his mouth to speak, and then decided against it, several times. He had too many questions, too many excuses and explanations, too many  _ things _ swirling around in his head, and he just didn’t know where to begin.

“I think children of the night are vampires, actually,” he said, unsure why that was the thought that swam to the forefront of his mind.

Dean, in spite of everything, laughed. It was strained, the kind of laugh that comes in breathless panic when there’s just nothing to do but laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but it was also loud, and full, and  _ Dean,  _ and Cas half wanted to cry about it. He did, halfway, the other half of him laughing along, because the relief and the horror of Dean knowing and caring but still sitting here, laughing like this was something that they could ever become  _ okay with _ put his heart at all out war with itself.

“I broke you,” Cas half-sobbed. “I made you into… I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”

“Is it fucked up that I’m kind of more mad that you let me make so fucking sick?” Dean asked, equally in turmoil.

Looking at Dean, Cas lost the battle for self control, and reached out to touch him. Dean flinched again. So with the last reserves of calm he had in him, Cas slowly and steadily took his hand anyway, feeling the tension under his skin.

“You won’t hurt just by touching,” he said, softly.

Dean breathed, chest sounding tight. “Are you sure?”

Cas laughed again, and leaned forward to kiss Dean, threading a hand into his hair and doing his best to push their lips together in between these panicked, desperate, confused noises they were both so consumed by. It took a moment for Dean to kiss back, to melt and let the tension ease from his muscles - not all the way, but a half measure was better than nothing.

When he pulled back, Cas paused with his fingertips brushing Dean’s jaw, and what he’d just done crashed over him like a wave. Even if any of this were fine, even if Dean was willing to entertain forgiveness for everything… that still didn’t fix things. That still didn’t put Cas in Dean’s good books, let alone back in his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” Cas whispered.

Dean rested his forehead against Cas’ and took one, deep breath before speaking. “I wanna stay,” he said.

“What?”

“I know I’m supposed to care a lot more about all the bad shit, but Cas… I can’t leave this anymore than you can,” Dean explained. “You’re still sick, and that’s partly my fault, and--”

“It’s not your fault,” Cas interrupted. “I did this to you, and even knowing the consequences I still let it happen.”

“You’re still sick,” Dean said, in a mild correction. “I just wanna take care of you. Is that fucked up?”

Cas nodded, their foreheads bumping together awkwardly. “Yeah,” he said. “But we’re both pretty fucked up, so I think you’re allowed.”

Dean kissed him again.

And Dean stayed.

Praise be to whatever force, whichever holy or unholy being, Cas would throw himself gladly at their feet in gratitude... Dean stayed.

They didn’t know how it would work, yet, or even if, but if nothing else they were both determined to try. Even if the consequences would never go away. Even then.

They went inside, went  _ home, _ held each other on the couch for hours, and Cas told Dean all his secrets until he was too tired to speak, and then Dean returned the favour. Cas tried desperately to keep his eyes open, because the thought of falling asleep too soon, of losing even one moment of this feeling, made his chest ache. For the first time in a long time, there was nothing he was holding in. No facade.

It felt better than he could possibly have imagined.

“We’re going to try to fix it,” Cas explained, seated at the kitchen table with Meg on speaker phone.

“Fix you, or fix him?” Meg asked, voice echoing out, tinny on the tiny speakers. She was pissed, of course. She’d get over it.

Cas shrugged. “Whichever comes first,” he said. “Whatever lets us stay together-- thank you.” The last, he directed to Dean, as he placed a plate of french toast in front of Cas before settling down across from him with his own plate and cup of coffee. Cooking seemed to be the fascet of caretaking Dean had always preferred, and with sex off the table (potentially forever, which made Cas groan internally but somehow wasn’t a deal breaker), he just seemed determined to make sure Cas ate his weight in comfort food each day.

“You know you’re both suicidally stupid, right?” Meg asked.

“We have a plan for the worst case scenario,” Cas said. It involved a lot of polyamory, a permanent disability claim, and a few magic loopholes, but it was a plan. “Help us come up with a better one.”

“You can’t come back to the coven if you stay with him,” Meg said.

“I know,” Cas replied.

“Buer won’t touch you,” Meg continued. “And neither will any other demon with the juice to fix you. You’ll be like this forever.”

“He knows,” Dean chimed in. “And that’s only the worst case scenario, anyway.”

“Which is why we need help,” Cas said, carrying on the thought. “You’ve been in the coven longer than I have. You develop your own spells. We need someone like you.”

“I  _ have _ been in the coven longer than you, and helping you turn your back on the coven will very definitely ensure that I am _ not _ in the coven anymore.”

“Only if you get caught.”

_ “Castiel, I swear to God,”  _ she hissed. “I’m sorry, there’s just no good reason for me to take this risk.”

“You want a reason?” Dean asked, incredulous. He snatched the phone from the center of the table, spitting mad. “Meg, he could die!”

“Oh, honey,” Meg drawled. “Castiel made that jizz-stained bed and he’s gonna have to lie in it.”

Cas grabbed the phone right back, taking it from Dean’s hand. “Dean’s channeling his sexual frustration into cooking,” he said. “And we can pay you in unlimited hand tossed pizza.”

“Hey!” Dean spat. “Don’t voluntell me!”

Covering the mouthpiece with his hand, Cas leaned forward, squinting in confusion. “You’ll give up sex forever for me but you won’t make my best friend some fucking pizza?”

“Your ‘best friend’ stabbed me,” Dean deadpanned, with literal finger quotes.

“I can still hear you,” Meg said, sounding deeply unamused. A little embarrassed, Cas took his hand off the phone. “Fuck it. Fine,” she concluded. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

And with that, and not another word, she hung up the phone. Cas wondered, idly, if the pizza had really been the tipping point, or if they’d just kind of annoyed her into cooperation. He had his bets on the latter.

Meg arrived bright and early on Saturday morning with three milk crates of books in her car. Dean helped her carry them in, and she laid them out in an organized mess on the kitchen table as she made her first of several complex custom pizza orders.

Cas knew the rules, understood how to use them and how best to get what he needed from Buer’s power when he’d had it, but Meg was good at the homebrew. She designed and crafted spells and potions and tricks like it was all simple mathematics to her. Cas could have learned how to cast a new spell, or perform a ritual, on his own if it was in the books, or if he’d seen an elder do it before, but if he was going to bend the rules, to get away with breaking them, he needed Meg.

The house became a library overnight. Cas and Meg’s combined research and resources were dragged out from her car, from his basement, and scattered across the house. Meg led the charge, but Cas set himself up as a talented research assistant - if Meg knew what she was looking for, Cas could find it. And being able to sit in one place let him work for a couple hours at a time before he ran out of energy and needed to go rest.

Dean helped, too, when he wasn’t at work. Not with the research, but with snacks, and tea, and extracting lost pages of notes from under the sofa. If Meg was the professor, and Castiel the research assistant, Dean was the unpaid intern who went on the coffee runs. 

To Cas’ surprise, Dean had no shame in that, either. “Hey, it’s a thankless job, but somebody’s gotta do it,” he had said, dropping off a bowl of guacamole that would definitely be dripped across the pages of a 17th century volume of occult literature within the next sixty seconds.

During the day, while Meg was at work, and late into the night after she left, Dean and Castiel were left in a strange kind of limbo. On one hand, the feasibility of their relationship still wasn’t a sure thing. On the other, they were fighting for it.

More often than not, they would put the books away and find an hour to talk, and Dean would make Cas drink soup, and make him go upstairs to bed before he passed out in his chair and had to be carried to bed by his big strong demonic fireman boyfriend. Not that Cas would have complained about that. Not by any means.

Cas couldn’t be sure, but he thought he was still getting weaker, more exhausted. Meg burned the candle at both ends, leaving her day job only to come work with Cas in the evenings, and the exhaustion was starting to show on her, too. Dean would be okay, would always be okay, but the high he’d gotten from Castiel’s lifeforce was no longer keeping him on top of the world. He was sleeping more than an hour or two a night, again - almost back to normal.

It was strained. But it worked.

Or at least it would, if they ever found anything. But lead after lead were running into dead ends, and two weeks passed without results to show for all the work. And Meg was running out of ideas.

Castiel tried to have hope. He held Dean’s hand, and remembered what they were fighting for.

Cas hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep, but he woke up with his head pillowed on his arms, a book laying open by his elbow. His back ached. So did his hips, his knees, and most other parts of him. He didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep, but when he raised his head, he could tell the sun had gone down, and the kitchen was quiet. Meg had left for the night, evidently. 

In her chair, however, was Dean. His head was propped up on a fist, forehead creased as he squinted at a book in the yellow light of the kitchen fixtures.

“Hey,” Cas said, startling Dean out of his trance. He looked up, going a little soft around the eyes, and gave Cas a gentle smile.

“Hey,” Dean repeated.

“What’re you reading?” Castiel asked.

Dean lifted the book to show off the cover. It was one of the ones from Meg’s library. “This one’s in English,” he said. “So I figured I’d give it a shot.”

“Find anything?”

“Well, I learned that apparently I can’t understand English,” Dean said, slapping the book shut. He tossed it down onto the table. “It’s all pretty beyond me. It was dumb of me to try.”

Succumbing to the temptation to rest his head back on the table, Castiel accompanied the motion with a stretch of his arm across the table, silently requesting Dean’s hand. Dean complied with a sigh. “It’s not dumb,” Cas said. “It’s just highly specialized literature. You could learn it if you started with the basics.”

The words seemed to give Dean a little comfort. “Just kinda tired of feeling like I can’t help, I guess,” he said, squeezing Cas’ hand. Cas squeezed back.

Dean reluctantly let go of Cas so he could rub his eyes with the back of each hand, suppressing a yawn.

“Bed time?” Cas asked.

Dean nodded.

Upstairs, in bed, Cas slid under the sheets beside Dean, snuggling up. Their legs entwined, Dean wrapped his arms around him, holding Cas’ head to his chest with the warm embrace. Cas closed his eyes and breathed in Dean’s scent. For all that he’d literally just been asleep for several hours, he was still exhausted - this was the only place he really felt at rest.

“Are you okay?” Dean mumbled, sleepily, into Cas’ hair.

The question took him by surprise. “Yeah, all things considered,” he said.

“Is it getting worse?” Dean asked.

Cas thought he might be able to see where Dean was going, track the little cogs turning in his brain. He wanted to reassure Dean, to put the question to rest, but when he tried to say no, it caught in his throat. Honesty, he had promised. The lies only made things worse - even when he thought he was using them for Dean’s wellbeing. 

“A little,” he said, quietly. “Slowly.”

Dean sighed. He rubbed his thumb in a slow circle at the nape of Cas neck, and Cas hummed, allowing it to relax him. “Could you still go back to your coven?” He asked.

Opening his eyes, Cas blinked up at Dean. He shook his head the fraction that the close contact allowed. “Even if I wanted to,” he said. “Technically, I’ve knowingly sacrificed to another demonic entity by sleeping with you. It would take a lot to be accepted back, now. Even if the elders didn’t know, Buer would.”

“Huh,” Dean huffed, and was quiet for a few minutes. He kept rubbing those soft circles in Cas’ hair. Cas had almost drifted off again when Dean finally spoke, his voice rumbling in his chest against Cas’ hands. “If I were your satanic sugar daddy, you know what I’d do?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Cas’ mouth, though he kept his face tucked against Dean. “What?” He asked.

“I wouldn’t throw you out just for getting laid,” Dean said. Cas thought that this had become far more than ‘getting laid,’ but let Dean continue. “Hell, I’d use my demon powers to help you get laid. As much as you want and deserve.”

“Cute.”

“It’d all be selfish, of course,” Dean admitted. “Because I’d also wanna be the one laying you, or whatever. No big knives or altars, just a roll in the hay and you could have all the magic you wanted.”

Cas opened his eyes. 

Wait.

“Wait,” he said. “You  _ are _ a demon.”

“Yes?” Dean said, clearly utterly out of his depth.

Shaking off Dean’s hold, suddenly full of adrenaline, Cas sat up. He bent over Dean, who still lay prone, speaking quickly to try and keep up with his racing mind. “I take back every rude thing I ever thought about you, Dean,” Cas said. “You’re a genius.”

“I am?”

“My life force was being consumed via sex, right?” Cas began. “But if the being doing that was my patron--”

“You said Buer wouldn’t take you,” Dean said. “Does he even do the sex thing? Isn’t he made of goat legs?”

_ “You, Dean.” _

Dean opened his mouth, and then closed it. “You lost me.”

“My agreement with Buer is void,” Cas explained. “I’m a free agent. I can make a new bond with any demonic entity that’ll take me, only none of them would as long as I was, in a roundabout way, serving you. And we never considered it, because you’re just so new to the ranks of Hell, but you’re as able to form a bond with a witch as any demon.”

Recognition crossed Dean’s face, and slowly, oh so slowly, he realized what Cas was saying. He sat up in bed, too, gaping open mouthed as he processed the info dump that he’d just received.

“I could give you my power,” Dean said.

“If giving you lifeforce during sex can be considered a sacrifice, you can repay the gift by replacing what was lost,” Cas said. “It’s a closed loop. A fully symbiotic relationship.”

The euphoria held for only a minute, before Dean’s face fell in fractions. He seemed unsure, suddenly. He was worried, and his worry killed Cas’ buzz, introducing doubt.

“What?” Castiel asked.

“Are you sure?” Dean asked. “I mean, I don’t know how any of this works, yet. Even if I have the energy to give you, I don’t know how.”

Cas took his hand, entwining their fingers for a small point of comfort. “There’s rituals involved. I think it can be done fairly easily - it may even help you learn to use and control your powers.”

“I also…” Dean began, and then trailed off. He thought a moment, face twisting with concentration and worry. “Wouldn’t that also mean you were stuck with me?” He asked. “Like, forever?”

Something stuttered inside Castiel’s chest. A horrible doubt creeped in that maybe, just maybe, the real question was “wouldn’t that mean I was stuck with you?” 

“These bonds aren’t unbreakable,” Cas said softly, trying and failing to cover his vulnerability.

“Would you survive breaking it?”

“Even if we weren’t romantically involved anymore, I’m sure we could work something out, or…” Cas said. He lost the heart to continue, though, and shook his head. “No, nevermind.”

He lay back down, pulling weakly for Dean to join him, but Dean didn’t go. 

“No, I’m listening,” Dean argued.

“It’s okay, we’ll figure out something else,” Cas said, and this time when he tugged on Dean’s arm, Dean lay down with him. He stayed on edge, though, a little too stiff to relax back against the pillows. He put hands on Cas, but left enough space between them to talk face to face.

When Cas realized Dean was still watching him, waiting for him to explain, he sighed. “Forever’s a long time, I know,” he said.

“That’s not what I was worried about,” Dean said. “I want to do this for you. With you. I’m just worried I’ll fuck it up and hurt you worse.”

Cas lay a hand on Dean’s cheek, finally understanding. He found himself smiling, unbidden, and ran his thumb over the crest of Dean’s cheekbone. Dean, however nervously, smiled back at him, green eyes soft and bright in the dark room.

“I trust you,” Cas told him. Looking at him then, he knew it was true. He knew this was what he’d meant the night he’d learned Dean was an incubus, when he’d told Dean he loved him. “I trust you, and I need you.”

Dean kissed him. Dean had never been a man of eloquent words, but he expressed endless depths in touch. Anything he could have said was eclipsed by the indulgence of his mouth and the way his body curled around Cas, making him feel secure.

When they pulled away, they stayed close. Cas watched Dean’s face, brushed his bottom lip with his thumb.

“How do I do it?” Dean asked. “Do we need anything from your altar?”

Cas shook his head. “That stuff just keeps contact and favor with a demon,” he explained. “You’re right here already. So we just… make a promise and do something to establish a bond. Anything, really. Could be blood, could just be a handshake.”

“Could be…?” Dean asked, teasingly, before planting a peck at the corner of Cas’ mouth.

Cas huffed a laugh. “Yes, kisses are common.”

“Then I promise to make you healthy,” Dean said, and dove in for a long, soft kiss.

As they broke off, Cas laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “It needs a little more specificity than that,” he said, gently.

“Okay,” Dean said. “Then what?”

“So I say, I promise that so long as you provide for my needs, all I have is yours,” Cas said. “And you say…”

“I promise to provide for your needs, so long as all you have is mine,” Dean parroted back, smiling softly. He ran a hand over Cas’ hair, brushing some stray strands from his face. He kissed Cas again, softer, a little less giddy, and Cas smiled against his mouth. 

Realizing he had to keep Dean on-topic by any means necessary, though, Cas pulled back first.  _ “And,”  _ he said, firmly, “if you promise me the protection of your unholy power, I promise to do your will and all you ask.”

“Why do I doubt that?” Dean said, practically giggling. Cas swatted him playfully on the shoulder, and though he rolled his eyes, he relented. “I promise to protect you if you do as I ask. Geez, aren’t these a little heteronormative?”

Before Cas could respond, Dean was on him a third time, rolling on top of him and kissing him senseless. It was too much, too breathless and wonderful and  _ perfect _ for Castiel to stop him. He lost his concerns and the reality of the ritual they were - very poorly - attempting to perform in the taste of Dean’s mouth and the warmth of his body.

Dean came to be straddling Cas’ hips, almost a wicked parody of their first night. Only this time, there were no offerings, no sacrifices. They each had nothing to give the other but themselves, wholly and completely. 

Looking up at Dean was like looking into the sun, his incomparably bright soul still visible through his exhaustion, and the shade of its demonic tint. He was still Dean. He would always be Dean.

“Hey,” Cas said, softly, when he regained possession of his own lips. “We can do this with more than a kiss. If you want to.”

Dean blinked down at him. “Is it safe?” He asked. “For you, I mean.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Cas replied.

“Then yes,” Dean said, eagerly. “God, yes.” 

It took a few minutes to get Dean to detach from Cas’ mouth long enough to get undressed and find the lube, but before long he had Cas’ dick in his mouth and three fingers in Cas’ ass. And God, Cas thought, the last few weeks, trying to deny this to himself, had been  _ fucking torture _ and he hadn’t actually realized the depth of it until that moment. Every nerve in his body was singing for Dean’s touch, for the perfection of being joined. For the beautiful inevitability of being filled.

“C’mon, Dean, please,” Cas breathed, tugging Dean’s hair gently to get him to come up and move things along.

Dean made an almost put out sound at being forced to let go of Cas’ cock, but not one to deny him anything, Cas dragged him all the way up and pressed their mouths together, desperate and needy and oh, so ready. Dean’s fingers slipped out of him and his hand came to rest on Cas’ hip, smearing lube on his skin. No further explanation was needed - they arranged their hips, Cas’ ass resting on Dean’s thighs, and then there was that sweet touch before the pressure, as Dean lined himself up.

“I thought of another promise,” Dean said, as if this was in any way a good time to hit pause, as if he wasn’t making Cas want to tear his hair out. “I promise to give you back all your life energy, but you gotta promise not to do any more stabbings, okay?”

“Seriously?” Cas panted.

“Yes, seriously,” Dean said. He pressed in an inch or two as he spoke, making Cas arch his back and  _ want. _

“I promise not to kill anybody if you promise not to kill me with your cock, alright?” Cas said, laughing breathlessly. “I will only ever penetrate you in the good ways, Dean, but you need to penetrate me, right now, immediately.”

He’d barely finished speaking before Dean was driving forward with a smirk on his lips and a hard determination in his body. Cas’ head fell back against the pillow, open mouthed, as Dean settled into him fully and moved his hands to Cas’ jaw, guiding their mouths back together. 

Dean’s hips jerked, working up a brutal rhythm, and Cas shifted his pelvis to take Dean as best he could, his hands too occupied in Dean’s hair to push against the headboard for leverage. Dean made soft, breathy, eager noises between kisses, and in turn he made Cas groan, long and low, into his mouth.

They’d been reduced to little more than panting against each other’s lips, breathing each other’s air, when Cas remembered what they were supposed to be doing this for. “Dean?” He asked, though his mind and body should have been, by all accounts, long past coherent speech.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” Dean asked, equally loose and breathy.

“I promise,” he began, words choppy as his body was rocked with Dean’s thrusts. “I promise to love and honour you, so long as you love and honour me in return.”

Dean chuckled, so incredibly softly in the back of his throat.

“‘s like marriage vows, isn’t it?” He mumbled, and took a moment, only, to bite Cas’ lip as a tease before repeating it. “I promise to love and honour you, Castiel. As you do me.”

Something grew large and warm in Cas, then, stretching out his ribs and making him ache in the most perfect possible way. He clung to Dean even closer than before, and things picked up very quickly, after that. His hand found his own cock, as an urgency overtook him, and Dean’s hand joined it. He pressed Cas into the mattress by their mouths, their hips, and drove him to absolute desperation.

And like that, it was over.

It would not have been an exaggeration to say that Cas felt like his stomach was being pulled out through his dick. If the previous orgasms he’d suffered - and as lovely as a suffering it was, it was suffering - at Dean’s hands had made him understand the term ‘little death,’ this made him wonder if he really was dying. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he was being emptied out and would be hollow forever. He blacked out, unaware of anything except the absolute emptiness of his body and the fullness of Dean inside him, of Dean still kissing him.

And like that, it all snapped back into place.

By the time Dean spilled inside of him, Cas was on fire. His eyes flew open and he gasped as his body was filled with light, with power, with  _ everything.  _ He felt like he could run a marathon, right there, right then. He felt like if Dean ever stopped fucking him it would be too soon. He felt like he could come another hundred times and never stop loving each and every tiny sensation of it.

As he came back to himself, Dean was gasping against his neck, shifting his hips in tiny circles as he came down. Cas stroked his hair and kissed his cheek.

“Cas,” Dean breathed. “Holy shit, Cas.”

Castiel didn’t have words, so he kissed Dean, instead, for the millionth time that night. They kissed, over and over, until they came away laughing. 

Dean touched his cheek tenderly. “How do you feel?” He asked. 

“Incredible,” Cas said, because it was the only word that came even close. Incredible. So good, he couldn’t really even believe it was real. “You?”

“Fucking fantastic,” Dean laughed.

Reluctantly, Dean pulled out and they lay down, together, breathless and happy and only half-satisfied. It was perfection, but it somehow still felt like they could go on forever chasing that same release.

Side by side, staring at the ceiling, neither quite knew what to say. Dean leaned his head against Cas’ shoulder, and Cas took his hand, entwining their fingers and running his thumb over Dean’s knuckles.

“Should we tell Meg?” Dean asked, after some time.

“Tomorrow,” Cas replied.

“Oh, okay,” Dean said, and then was quiet for another several minutes. Then he spoke again. “I don’t think I can go to sleep after that.”

“Neither can I,” Cas admitted. He turned over to face Dean in the dark. “I feel like we should do something.”

“We could go somewhere,” Dean said, smiling. “We could go anywhere.”

“We could go everywhere,” Cas replied, a smile creeping across his face, something warm and hopeful burning in his chest in a way he’d never quite felt before. 

“Not in the middle of the night, though,” Dean said, with a half shrug.

“No,” Cas said, and kissed Dean once more. He pressed Dean’s shoulders back against the bed and deftly swung himself up and over, straddling Dean’s stomach. He touched his thumb to Dean’s full bottom lip. “Tomorrow.”

Dean smirked up at him, the same wonder in his eyes that Cas was feeling in his heart. “What about tonight, then?” He asked.

Castiel smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all: thank you all for joining me :)  
> Second of all: thank you for any of you joining me on mini-GISH Eve because you need to rest, now, friends. Please. Before it's too late.  
> Finally: thank you to AnOddSock for helping me so much with this entire fic, as a beta and as a sounding board.


End file.
